Whenever Marion Miller walked the grounds of Ocean Beach Elementary School, whispers would echo through the corridors.

“There she is!” students would say. “The Kite Lady!”

Mrs. Miller was well-known for organizing and championing the annual Ocean Beach Kite Festival, where hundreds of children would gather to sweep their colorful kites across the sky.

She was also a fixture as a volunteer at Ocean Beach Elementary. She was so involved that four years ago, the school named its new library after her.

“Marion's best interests were always for the children and the community,” said Margaret Johnson, the school's principal. “She's someone you could always count on.”

Mrs. Miller died Aug. 8 of complications from a five-year battle with lung cancer. She was 83.

She was born Feb. 5, 1925, in Arlington, Mass., to Ada and William Eccles. They later moved to Phoenix. Mrs. Miller received degrees in bookkeeping and accounting from Phoenix College and Heald College and married William Miller, a Navy pilot, in 1945. The two met as teenagers.

Like many Navy families, the Millers moved several times before settling in Ocean Beach in 1968, where Mrs. Miller found work as a bookkeeper.

She joined the Ocean Beach Kiwanis Club in 1988, becoming the chapter's first female member. She served as the club's president seven times.

It was her spunky personality and commitment to the Ocean Beach Kite Festival that made Mrs. Miller legendary among children and the community.

She organized and directed the festival for at least 20 years, ensuring that every aspect of the event was held to the highest standards, from the craft fair to the kite-making. She even vouched for the weather, telling people that she had “an agreement with the man upstairs.”

“There were a lot of years when we woke up, and it was ugly and drizzly, and my mom said, 'Don't worry about it,' ” said Bill Miller, her son. “And by the time the kids started showing up, the sun would be out.”

Mrs. Miller was a longtime member of the Ocean Beach Town Council, the Ocean Beach Recreation Council and the Ocean Beach Elementary School Site Governance Committee. In 1995, she was named Ocean Beach Citizen of the Year.

“No matter what school I was attending, my mother was the PTA president,” Bill Miller said. “She really felt that children didn't have enough advocates.”

Mrs. Miller would find five or six families who were financially strapped each year and invite their children on back-to-school shopping trips, where she would treat them just like her own children.

“If my brother and I got four pairs of Levi's, they got four pairs of Levi's,” Bill Miller said.

Added her granddaughter, Kellee Waters of Point Loma: “She loved being able to do something for someone.”

Mrs. Miller also could be found cheering on the Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium. A longtime season-ticket holder, she followed the Chargers to Miami to support the team in the Super Bowl in 1995, when she was in her 70s.

“She never missed a game,” Nickel said. “She went to Miami with a bolt painted on her cheeks.”

Mrs. Miller's husband died in 2003. She is survived by her son, Bill Miller of Carmichael; brothers Robert Eccles and George Eccles of Phoenix; sister Margaret Day of Phoenix; five grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.