Aleta Fenceroy, who for eight years operated the Fenceberry LGBT newswire with her partner Jean Mayberry, died Saturday, September 23, after a battle with cancer. She was 57.

Ms. Fenceroy was born December 27, 1948. She raised two children as a single mother on welfare while working part time and studying music. She attended Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, then received her master of fine arts degree at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

After working for the Iowa Department of Corrections for more than a decade, Ms. Fenceroy went back to school to earn an associate degree in computer programming in 1998. She then took a job in Omaha, Nebraska, as a programmer-analyst with First Data Resources.

Starting in the mid-1990s, Ms. Fenceroy and Mayberry operated the informal Fenceberry e-mail news service, which distributed LGBT news articles – sometimes dozens per day – to hundreds of subscribers worldwide.

The two women, partners for 15 years, first published a small local print newsletter. When Bill Stosine, who founded the electronic newswire in 1993, announced that he would no longer continue, the two women stepped in, acquired his list of subscribers, and renamed the newswire using an amalgamation of their last names.

Over the eight years they operated the service, Ms. Fenceroy and Mayberry distributed up-to-the-minute reports on several key events in recent LGBT history, stretching from the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998 to the U.S. Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas sodomy law decision and the Massachusetts same-sex marriage ruling in 2003.

Although they never received payment, Ms. Fenceroy devoted three or more hours each day to the project, researching and compiling news around her regular programming job.

"She was dogged in her pursuit of answers," said Mayberry. "Aleta was determined to hunt down the story, to get the news out, to defend her community, and to right the wrongs to the best of her ability."

"[I]t was a way to be an activist without ever leaving my home," Fenceroy told an interviewer for the Advocate in 2004.

The couple announced in July 2004 that they were discontinuing the service, in part because America Online no longer allowed them to send out mass e-mails, but primarily because the project had taken over their lives and they felt a need to spend less time on the computer and more time involved with each other and their local community.

"Those women gathered hundreds and hundreds of gay-related news stories from thousands of news sources in the U.S. and around the planet, then e-mailed the news clippings to many grateful readers, myself among them," longtime activist Michael Petrelis wrote in his blog. "It's a shame no one stepped forward to continue the work of Fenceberry when they retired."

"To have, every day, news from all around the country pulled together in such an intelligent and creative way has been a bedrock for my work," Freedom to Marry founding director Evan Wolfson said when the news service ended. "They have built community in the truest sense – through connection and information."

After discontinuing the newswire, the couple stayed involved in activism, working for the John Kerry campaign in 2004.

In her remaining spare time, Ms. Fenceroy, a church organist for 30 years, performed as a soprano and accompanist for Omaha's River City Mixed Chorus. She also served as music director for numerous community theater performances.

In June of this year, Ms. Fenceroy was diagnosed with cancer. She died peacefully at home in the company of loving family and friends.

Ms. Fenceroy is survived by Mayberry, her children Michelle and J.J., and granddaughters Chloe, Ella, and Teaghan.

There will be no funeral, but a memorial celebration of her life is being planned. Donations in her memory may be made to the American Civil Liberties Union.