CARLSBAD -- Joel Davy, the subject of a series of heartfelt, personal columns in the North County Times, died Saturday morning after a long fight with lung cancer, a time in which her strength and courage inspired everyone around her.

Her friends and family say that Davy, 55, faced the illness with an optimistic attitude through all the ups and downs. She died peacefully at her family's home in Carlsbad.

"She is in God's hands," her husband, North County Times Editor Kent Davy, said Saturday. "A big celebration has started with a new angel in heaven.

Kent Davy has been on leave in recent months to care for his wife. During that time, he wrote a well-received series of columns about his family's experiences.

"She touched people's lives in life as well as in dying," said Managing Editor Rusty Harris. "That came through loud and clear by reading those wonderful columns that Kent wrote."

The Davys were married for 26 years. They moved to Carlsbad in 1996, when Kent Davy was named editor of the newspaper.

One of Joel Davy's closest friends was Debbie Tribett. The two met in junior high in Springfield, Va., became buddies during high school and stayed in touch through the years.

"She was always very popular," Tribett said. "She got asked to all the events at school. She was a very outgoing, very bubbly person, the captain of the majorettes in high school."

Tribett, now a licensed vocational nurse, visited the Davys five times over the last year to help care for her ailing friend.

"She never cried, never complained, was never distraught or said, 'Why me?' " Tribett recalled Saturday afternoon. "She was determined to fight as best she could for as long as she could."

In college, Joel Davy joined ROTC to help pay for her education, Tribett said, and after graduation, began a military career. She retired in November 2002 as a lieutenant colonel in the California Air National Guard after 23 years of service.

She was very proud of her military service, her husband said.

"Joel was the most unlikely military person," Kent Davy said. "She wasn't a warrior … in the sense of guns on ready." But she was a leader, he said, and she knew how to get people to do their jobs.

"She also was a crack marksman," he said. He recalled a time when all the Guard officers had to go to the range and shoot at targets to requalify with their weapons.

"In this group was a state patrolman, a DEA agent, and all these other men," Kent Davy said. "She outshot them all. What they didn't know going into it was that her dad had started her on a shooting range as a young girl. She was very, very good at it."

When she was promoted to the rank of major, he said, all her troops started calling her "Major Mom."

The mother of one son, college student Jesse Davy, Joel Davy had many interests. She was a deacon at Christ Presbyterian Church in Carlsbad, where her love of cooking and crafts often came in handy.

"The deacons are the caring branch of the church, the ones that visit the sick, the shut-ins and all that," said Associate Pastor Jan Cook.

"There was a woman in the church in poor financial shape," Cook said. "Joel went over and straightened things out. She set it up like a command center. No one else could do it. She was very practical, but she had mush for a heart."

Joel Davy performed in the church handbell choir. She made jewelry and greeting cards for her family and church members. Her cards were included in the layettes that the church distributed to all its new mothers.

"It was wonderful to be around her," Cook said. "The world was a bit brighter when she was in it. It will be a bit grayer for a while."

Shirley and Wayne Davy of Columbus, Neb., have been staying with the family in Carlsbad for weeks to help out.

"I feel like I've not only lost a daughter, but I've lost one of my very best friends," Shirley Davy said. "Whenever she had to go off to wherever they sent the Guard, we'd get a call and it was time for us to go and sit with Kent and the baby. We always felt so welcome. … We spent many vacations together."

Services were pending Saturday.