Notable Passings Of 2009:

Here are six of the year’s most prominent passings:

LAURA HATHAWAY (March 8)

Hathaway, who founded the private Pegasus School and served as its head for 25 years, died at 67 after a long battle with cancer.

The school gave students the opportunity to excel beyond their years; a former pupil at Hathaway’s funeral remembered a peer working on calculus in eighth grade while everyone else worked at their own level.

Hathaway started as a public school teacher working with gifted students, but felt the school didn’t offer them enough challenges. Pegasus started as a summer program, but grew into a year-round school for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

“She was very dedicated and passionate in educating and tenacious in the way that she went about growing the school,” said Mark Danner, whose three children went through the school and who now serves as the chairman of its board of directors.

CHARLES “MASK” LEWIS (March 11)

The co-founder of the mixed martial arts clothing label TapouT may have looked sinister when he donned his famous face paint, but when Lewis died in a crash in Newport Beach at the age of 45, his loved ones remembered him just as well for his humor, bearish good nature and unfailing optimism.

The Huntington Beach resident, whose motto was “Simply Believe,” started TapouT from scratch and built it into a multimillion-dollar company. He also hosted a reality TV show.

Thousands of people, including many from the mixed martial arts community, packed Lewis’ funeral at Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. A comment from a friend during his funeral suggested Lewis’ way with people: “Knowing Charles, he’s on a first-name basis with God and everybody else up there.”

PATRICIA HARNEY (Sept. 25)

There were few roles Harney didn’t play in the Fountain Valley School District. The board of trustees president, first elected in 2002, had been a teacher at three of the district’s schools, a longtime parent and the co-founder of the Fountain Valley Educational Foundation, which raises funds for art and science programs.

When she died following surgery at age 72, her loss came as a shock to many in the district. Officials said Harney had missed only two board meetings over the summer and asked administrators not to make a big deal about her illness. To many, that was simply her work ethic.

Harney died before one of her longtime dreams came true; the foundation, which had a stated goal of raising $1 million, had garnered nearly that amount.

“We’re going to miss Pat,” music teacher Jon Lundgren said a month after her death. “She was a real big supporter of our programs and really kept things going.”

CHRIS HAWK (Oct. 23)

There were few moments more bittersweet this year than Sept. 18, when Hawk, who had throat cancer, was inducted into the Surfers’ Hall of Fame. As a crowd of fellow surfers stood by, the 58-year-old rasped a few words of thanks into a microphone and carefully carved a message — “Peace — Love — Surf” — into wet concrete.

Huntington Surf & Sport, which hosted the induction, typically welcomes four new surfers to the hall every year, and had already celebrated the 2009 group in July. When news of Hawk’s illness reached the owners, however, they made an exception for him.

When Hawk died a month later, the surfing community remembered him as a master on the waves and one of the finest board shapers around. One of the tributes left outside Huntington Surf & Sport read, “Chris, you caught the wave to heaven.”

JAN VANDERSLOOT (Nov. 4)

A champion of Orange County’s wetlands and wildlife and a longtime environmentalist, Vandersloot’s death at age 64 left friends and community members shocked.

Vandersloot was a founding member of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, a group dedicated to preserving the Bolsa Chica wetlands. He was involved in getting wastewater cleaned up en route to being pumped offshore and, on the day he died, won a fight with a land developer to preserve a 2-acre salt marsh, the Cabrillo Wetlands, in Huntington Beach.

“He leaves behind a legacy of leadership and inspiration, along with hundreds of square miles of wetlands he helped preserve,” Paul Arms, a member of the California League of Conservation Voters, said at the memorial service.

WESLEY BANNISTER (Dec. 10)

The former Huntington Beach mayor and longtime Orange County Water District board member died of cancer at 73.

Friends said he thrived on being busy.

Bannister served on the water district board of directors, was appointed director of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and was appointed to the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan.

Bannister also started his own Huntington Beach-based insurance company in 1974 and ran it until his retirement in 2003. Bannister was active in the community and served on the board of the Boys & Girls Club and YMCA, as charter president of the Huntington Beach Sunrise Rotary Club and as an advisor to the Huntington Beach Search and Rescue Post 563.

“He was so involved, and he went far beyond the normal elected official,” said Orange County Water District board member Jan Debay. “He was always a johnny-on-the-spot.”