Janis RuBane, née Ballenger, was born in Houston, Texas on July 13, 1933. She moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma with her family at a young age. Janis graduated from Guthrie High School and went on to earn an associate degree in Medical Records Science at the University of Mississippi.

Around 1965, Janis moved to El Paso, Texas, where she worked as the head of Medical Records at R. E. Thomason Hospital. At one point, she had cause to reprimand three young women working in her office for habitual tardiness. She let them off the hook, though, after they explained that they had to go to the church "to light candles for her and Dr. RuBane to get married." And in fact she did marry Dr. Frank RuBane in El Paso on June 6, 1966.

Janis and Frank settled in Garland, Texas in 1971, where they raised their two children, Becky and Tom. Janis stayed involved in her children's various extracurricular activities, bravely fulfilling the duties of a band-parent, and still made time for things important to her including learning piano and taking up quilting.

Janis moved to Wichita Falls in 1999 with her husband after he retired from medical practice. She transferred membership to First United Methodist Church of Wichita Falls. She also continued her hobby of quilting, making many friends among the quilting circles in town.

Janis was preceded in death by her daughter, Rebecca RuBane of Laguna Vista, Texas; her parents, Clyde and Bengie Ballenger, and her sister Patricia Miller, all of Guthrie, Oklahoma. She is survived by her husband, Frank; her son, Tom, of Denver, Colorado; her sister, Betty Silvers, of Guthrie; and her brother James Ballenger, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Janis will be remembered by her many friends and family as a caring, intelligent woman who never met a stranger.