Obituary is written by her son, Tom Crowther:
Longtime Burbank resident, Lorraine “Lori” Crews (formerly “Crowther”) passed away on June 2, 2025 after a short battle with Colon Cancer. She was 76, a resident of our city from 1986-2004, a teacher in Burbank Unified Schools for fifteen years, wife to Lary Crews and my mother.
Originally from Ventura, Lori was the only child of Thomas and Dagmar Huffman. Thomas was a star high school quarterback and a military man while Dagmar was a former beauty pageant queen despite the fact that she wore a wig most of her life after being a victim of a playhouse fire as a youth. Lori’s family had deep ties to the Ventura community having owned a car dealership in the city and having been longtime members of the local country club.
Lori graduated from Buena High School in Ventura. After a short marriage to her high school sweetheart that took them to Japan, Lori returned to her hometown and attended Ventura Community College before going on to graduate from U.C. Santa Barbara.
She met my father, Bob, while doing Summer Theatre at the Blackhills Playhouse in South Dakota. They settled in the Washington D.C. area where Lori worked as an administrative assistant on Capitol Hill in the office of Senator Guy Vander Jagt of Michigan.
When I started grade school and when my sister was just two, my mom entered the University of Maryland as a “30-something” to earn a second undergraduate degree and a teaching credential in order to fulfill her life-long dream of becoming a teacher.
When my family moved to Burbank in 1986 she got a job at Valley Torah High School in Valley Village. She taught at the small, private high school for several years and spoke fondly of the Rabbi who ran the school.
After a temporary assignment at Luther Burbank Middle School, Lori was hired by BUSD permanently at then David Starr Jordan Middle School where she taught 7th and 8th grade English.
At Jordan, Lori enjoyed performing with colleagues in the annual talent show “PITS” (Parents, Interested Teachers & Students) each school year and teaching a “sports time” elective during the era of Jordan’s “7-period day.”
My parents selected Burbank as our new home because they had heard good things about the schools for their two young children. I went on to become a longtime teacher, baseball coach and site administrator in BUSD. My mom loved to attend my team’s games. My kids (Lori’s two grandchildren) are current students in the district. My sister, Noelle, is also a Burroughs High School graduate.
Lori remarried in 1998 to Lary Crews. The two met online in the early days of AOL in a novel writing class that Lary instructed. They were inseparable during a marriage of 26 years and shared a love of books, of movies, of nostalgia, of cats.
The couple lived in Clearwater, FL, Las Vegas, NV and Reno, NV over the last two decades with a brief return to Burbank somewhere in-between. Lori had been battling late stage Colon Cancer since late January of 2025. She passed away peacefully in her home with Lary at her side. I am thankful to have spent time with her recently over a long weekend for Mother’s Day.
Lori will be cremated and her ashes spread along the Truckee River in accordance with her final wishes as she and Lary found comfort and happiness in the Reno area in her later years.
In lieu of flowers her husband, Lary, started a Go Fund Me campaign to support him with expenses associated with three lengthy hospital stays in 2025 while Lori battled cancer and the costs of carrying out her final wishes.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-lary-in-loris-final-days Additionally, Lary has committed to keeping her memory alive through telling her story on his BlueSky account in the months ahead. He invites friends to follow these anecdotes on the platform at @larycrews.bsky.social.
