Sarah "Sally" Helen Naas' artistic talents emerged as a preschooler, developed during Saturday classes at the Carnegie Museum of Art while in elementary school, improved during her years at Oakmont High School, expanded during her time at Muskingum College and blossomed in a variety of mediums during her lifetime.

Mrs. Naas, whose interests ranged from painting to wood and metal sculptures, ceramics and quilts, drowned last Sunday in a kayaking accident on the lower Cranberry River, a tributary of the Gauley River in Nicholas County, W.Va. She was 62.

She had learned to kayak in her early 50s and had paddled a number of whitewater rivers in West Virginia and other states.

Michael "Woody" Naas, her husband of 39 years, said his wife, who was wearing a helmet and life jacket, was paddling with several other experienced kayakers. He said she flipped over, rolled back up, flipped again and struck the back of her head and neck on a rock. She was pinned under a rock for about 10 minutes before her companions could free her.

After graduating with a degree in speech from Muskingum College in Ohio, she earned a degree in education from Wright State University and a master's degree in education from Marshall University. She taught art for 25 years at four elementary schools in Jackson County, W.Va. She also was a musician and played the flute and hammered dulcimer.

"She loved teaching art and she loved her students," said her fraternal twin sister, Susan Clites, of Verona. "She enjoyed helping them to develop their talents."

Two of Mrs. Naas' award-winning quilts are in the permanent quilt collection of the West Virginia Department of Culture and History. Mrs. Naas, who lost a breast to cancer, created a metal sculpture of a tennis player with one breast that was "quite controversial at the time," her sister said.

"She was remarkable," her husband said. They met and married at Muskingum College, honeymooned in Alaska and spent Christmas vacations paddling kayaks and camping on wooden platforms in the Everglades. They lived in a house along the Ohio River in Ravenswood, W.Va., where she was an avid gardener.

In addition to her husband and sister, Mrs. Naas is survived by another sister, Christine Schutzler, of Shelby, Mich.; and a brother, C. Leonard Schenck, of Charleston, S.C.

Visitation will be at 1 p.m. today with a celebration of life service immediately following at the Roush Funeral Home in Ravenswood. She was cremated and her remains were placed in an urn she made for that purpose.

The family said memorial contributions may be made to the Sarah H. Naas Scholarship Fund, c/o Citizens First Bank, Ravenswood, WV 26164.