DWIGHT LEE PARKS

LAMAR- Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at Daniel Funeral Home for Dwight Lee Parks, 90, Lamar, who died Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, at his home in Lamar. Burial will follow in Memory Gardens Cemetery in Lamar.

The family will receive friends from 1 p.m. until service time, Thursday, at the funeral home.

Contributions are suggested and made payable to the Barton County Memorial Park, in care of the funeral home.

Condolences may be shared at www.dfhlamar.com.

Survivors include his wife Dorothy Parks; two sons, Dave Parks and Darin Parks and two daughters, Deana Baker and husband Bill and Denny Massa and husband Russ, all of Lamar; eight grandchildren; Austin Parks and wife Tara, Orey Parks and wife Hope, Dalton Parks and wife Cheyenne, Whitney Castle and husband Brandon, Brandon Parks and wife Rae, Allie Runnels and husband Clay, Makensy Schmidgall and husband Isaac and Dylan Massa and 20 great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his parents; a grandson, Mike Vestal; one sister, Georgie Ann Parks; his mother-in-law and father-in-law, Roy and Mary Miller and one brother-in-law, Don Miller.

Mr. Parks was born Dec. 20, 1930, in Clinton, to Clem Francis and Mary (Schroth) Parks. He was a 1949 graduate of Lamar High School. On March 5, 1955, he married Dorothy Faye Miller in Carthage.

He was a freelancer by nature owning several different businesses including Parks Furniture and Hardware, Lamar License Bureau, D-X Service Station and Smith-Glynn Callaway Optical Shop in Springfield. He worked for Frank Horton Engineering burying telephone cable for many years and in 1964, as a truck driver, he was instrumental in physically transporting O'Sullivan Industries to Lamar. He retired as a case worker for the State of Missouri. He served in the United States Air Force from 1950-1954.

He was a jack of many trades, specializing in rebuilding anything with a motor, particularly aircraft, making wooden decorations that proudly hang in his children's homes today, but his specialty was building large remote controlled aircraft.