Roll Call Tribute

Deshae Elizabeth (Lott) Sadow 

February 2, 1971 - November 28, 2025 

Deshae Elizabeth Lott Sadow presented herself to her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in Shreveport, Louisiana, on Friday, November 28, 2025.

Deshae was born February 2, 1971, in Bad Cannstatt, Baden-Wurttemberg, Federal Republic of Germany, to Alton Richard Lott, Jr. and Judyth Lynn (Cleveland) Lott. Deshae moved to Bossier City in 1974, and at age five began to demonstrate symptoms of what six years of many tests later was diagnosed as limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, a form decades later revealed to be one of the rarest and most virulent. It caused her to stop being ambulatory just after her seventeenth birthday, and in 2002, she lost the ability to breathe on her own. For the remaining 23 years of her life, she breathed using mechanical ventilation.

Deshae attended Bossier City public schools and graduated as valedictorian from Parkway High School in 1989, with a bachelor's degree summa cum laude in 1993 from Louisiana State University Shreveport in 1993, with a master's degree in 1994 from Texas A&M University, and with a Ph.D. in 1999 from TAMU, with perfect grades throughout. After a post-doctorate year teaching at TAMU, she accepted an assistant professorship of English at the University of Illinois in Springfield. She resigned the position after a year to return to Bossier City, where she taught as an adjunct instructor of English at LSUS, retiring in 2017 after a quarter-century of teaching university courses. In her academic career, she published several scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries, as well as numerous short essays and poems. In 2011, Deshae received for one of her essays an EXCEL Gold Medal from Association Media and Publishing. She has served as a co-editor of the American Religion and Literature Society Newsletter.

She married Jeffrey Dennis Sadow on March 11, 2000, in Shreveport. Deshae also served on the Louisiana Developmental Disabilities Council from 2012-14, first in an interim and then an appointive capacity. For many years, she directed a nonprofit organization to provide graduate scholarships and quality-of-life grants to people with severe disabilities, and at its discontinuation established the Lott-Sadow-Cleveland Scholarship for graduate students with disabilities at TAMU. She also conducted a spiritual study group for a decade.

She was preceded in death by her mother; grandparents, Alton Richard Lott, Sr. and Opal Genett (Anderton) Lott; grandparents, Wilbur Lyle Cleveland and Ida Katharine (Coatney) Cleveland; in-laws, Ronald Dennis Sadow and Helen Veronica (Haddock) Sadow, and her beloved service dog of 12 years, Ulina.

She is survived by her husband; father; brother, Joseph Lott and wife, Kim; nephew, Jacob Lott; niece, Josie Corrente and husband, Alexander; great nieces, Khloe Lott and EllieJo Corrente; great nephews, Silas and Asher Corrente; aunt, Connie Thrash; uncles, Larry Thrash and wife, Elizabeth, Robert Cleveland and wife, Rayanne, Gregor Cleveland and wife, Tommie Jean, and Leland Cleveland and wife, Connie; and cousins, Robert Phillips, Logan Thrash, Brad Cleveland, Joshua Cleveland, Christine Cleveland, Luke Cleveland, Hart Cleveland, Jack Cleveland, and Grace Cleveland, and brother-in-law, Jonathan Sadow.

A service celebrating her life will be held at First United Methodist Church of Bossier City, 201 John Wesley Blvd., Bossier City, Louisiana, on Saturday, December 6, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. In lieu of flowers, in memoriam, Deshae would prefer donations go to Canine Companions (https://canine.org).