June Ann Arteberry

June Ann Arteberry was an American former women's professional baseball player and homemaker best known for her girlhood years with the Rockford Koeds, a farm club tied to the Rockford Peaches of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the real-life league later made famous by the film A League of Their Own. She died on October 21, 2026, at her home in Hilton Head, South Carolina, at the age of 92.

She was born June 9, 1934, in Rockford, Illinois, the only child of Edith and Arnold Gustafson. She joined the Koeds as a sixth grader and continued to play into her third year of college, stopping only when the women's professional league folded in 1954. She went on to earn a physical education degree from MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois.

While teaching physical education in St. Louis, Missouri, she met Gardner "Art" Arteberry, a recently discharged army veteran beginning a career with Dow Chemical Company. The two married and raised three children, Nancy, David and Chris, moving as a family through St. Louis, New Jersey, Midland, Michigan, Tokyo, Kansas City and London as Art's career took them around the world. Through those years she devoted herself to her family while remaining an avid and accomplished golfer, tennis player and bowler.

After Art's retirement the couple divided their time between Kansas City and Bonita Springs, Florida, where she continued to cultivate friendships, spend time with grandchildren and pursue the sports she loved. In her later years she lived in Hilton Head, South Carolina, with her longtime partner, Joseph K. Banks Jr.

Her death was confirmed through an obituary published by Simplicity Cremation in Bluffton, South Carolina and carried by the Georgetown Times. She is survived by her three children, six grandchildren, two great grandchildren and her partner, Joseph K. Banks Jr. The family has said it will hold a private memorial service; no public funeral details have been announced. No cause of death has been made public.