|
|
|
R E S O L U T I O N
|
|
WHEREAS, The loss of retired pastor Ivan Eugene Allen of Lake |
|
Jackson on May 21, 2012, is keenly felt by the many people whose |
|
lives he forever enriched; and |
|
WHEREAS, Born to Ivan and Aletta Allen on a family farm near |
|
Booker on September 25, 1922, Ivan Allen graduated from Booker High |
|
School in 1940; he then enrolled at Texas Technological College in |
|
Lubbock and became a member of the U.S. Army Reserve Officer |
|
Training Corps; in 1942, he joined the Army Reserve, and he served |
|
on active duty in the army for two years; and |
|
WHEREAS, Following his military service, Mr. Allen returned |
|
to operate the family farm, where he grew wheat and corn, raised |
|
chickens, and ran a small dairy; he joined the Methodist church in |
|
Booker, where he met his future wife, Helen Ball; married in 1945, |
|
the couple went on to spend nearly six decades together and were |
|
blessed with three children, Leta, Charles, and Roger; and |
|
WHEREAS, Mr. Allen answered the call to enter the ministry, |
|
and in 1960, he received his first appointment within the Methodist |
|
Church, moving with his family to Morse; in addition to serving the |
|
congregation, he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at |
|
Panhandle A&M College in Oklahoma in 1962; he was ordained a deacon |
|
that same year and later became an elder in the Northwest Texas |
|
Conference of the Methodist Church; and |
|
WHEREAS, Over the next three decades, Pastor Allen served |
|
congregations in Morse, Childress, New Deal, Sunray, Stinnett, |
|
Sweetwater, Munday, and White Deer, and for a dozen years he served |
|
as statistician with the church's Northwest Texas conference; |
|
retiring in 1988, he moved with his wife to Childress, where he |
|
remained active in the church and served as a hospice chaplain at |
|
Childress Regional Medical Center; a valued member of the Childress |
|
community for more than two decades, he moved to Lake Jackson in |
|
2009 to be closer to family; and |
|
WHEREAS, Pastor Ivan Allen lived a caring and purposeful |
|
life, and though his death has brought great sorrow to all who knew |
|
him, he leaves behind a legacy of good works that will long resonate |
|
in the communities in which he served; now, therefore, be it |
|
RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 83rd Texas |
|
Legislature, 1st Called Session, hereby pay tribute to the memory |
|
of Ivan Eugene Allen and extend sincere sympathy to the members of |
|
his family: to his children, Leta Ruth Loyd and her husband, Roger, |
|
Charles Roy Allen and his wife, Sanjuana, and Roger Keith Allen and |
|
his wife, Neeta; to his brother, R. D. Allen, and his wife, Jane; to |
|
his sisters, Mamie Agler, Effie Townsend, and Dorothy Tate; to his |
|
sister-in-law, Dorothy Allen; to his seven grandchildren and seven |
|
great-grandchildren; and to his other relatives and friends; and, |
|
be it further |
|
RESOLVED, That an official copy of this resolution be |
|
prepared for his family and that when the Texas House of |
|
Representatives adjourns this day, it do so in memory of Ivan Allen. |