July 26 is the first anniversary of the passing of Roy Ray, a long-time pillar of the Aledo community. His family has offered some remembrances of this remarkable man.
Roy was a good man and husband. The first time I remember meeting Roy was in the backyard at my brother’s house — I didn’t even see his face, I only heard his voice over the tall fence and hedge.
For our first date, I actually called him. We went out to Billy Bob’s to see Donna Fargo. It was a great night. We had a great time and just clicked the next Sunday.
He had actually had a prior engagement with a friend, but he called me the next day and told me that had been set up long before he met me. He was a true gentleman and always followed through. But from then on, we started a dating.
We spent a lot of time at the Aledo baseball complex, watching Desiree play baseball, then soccer, then basketball. Sports played a big role in our lives both going to the kids’ games and going to Aledo games, and TCU games.
Roy was an avid sports fan, no matter the sport. It didn’t take much to convince him to come to a game. If he had the slightest connection to anyone playing, he’d be there.
In May of 1981, Roy and his brother had planned to attend an insurance conference in Las Vegas, I was invited to attend with Roy. After the dinner, Roy surprised me with a marriage proposal, He just turned to me and said “hey, we’re in Las Vegas. Let’s get married!”
We did! We got a limo to City Hall to get our wedding license. We went to the Little White Wedding Chapel. On our 25th anniversary year, we took the whole family back to Vegas for an “reenactment,” (Roy’s word.) After 42 years of marriage “we still said ‘I do.’”
For many years, our spring breaks were filled with the usual activities: beach trips, ski trips to Colorado, and Disney. The first family trip to Wolf Creek everyone took ski lessons except for Roy. He was an athletic guy. How hard could it be?
One trip up and down the bunny slope, where he crashed at the bottom of the slope, and he was done. He would never ski again, but would faithfully drive us into the slopes and out of the slopes every day for many years. While the family skied, Roy would hang out in the lodge. We would always meet up for lunch, but it gave Roy a chance to do his favorite activity, hold court in the lodge and meet new friends.
It seemed like Roy never went anywhere where he didn’t know someone, and he considered everyone a friend and just friends he hadn’t met yet.
He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2022 but he never let a day go by where he didn’t say thank you to me for helping to take care of him, and drive him to doctors appointments and treatments.
All his family and friends miss him dearly: Carol, Desiree, Dennis, Jacob, Brittany, Benjamin, Kathy, Lewis, Julius, Lewis, Hubert, Michelle
My Dad was my hero and I miss him every day! He always made my birthday feel special even though it was four days before Christmas. He never missed a game and was my biggest fan!
He was a great listener when I needed to talk about work and always gave me advice options.
Some things you might not know about my dad are as follows: Dad jumped out of planes in the army; he was an avid golfer; he really did work on the farm then walk miles to school and back; he loved to get up early and take anyone and everyone to breakfast and his drink of choice was unsweet tea.
My kids will tell you that Grandpa was always there for them, taught them how to drive the old farm truck, feed the cows and fish, and that Ranch dressing made everything better! My husband, Dennis, and Dad perpetually discussed the outcome of football games and the players’ abilities and how TCU would show up this year.
Dennis still shares Roy's secret of using Woody's Cook-in sauce for grilling and now nothing else will do! In short, my Dad has always been there for his kids and his family regardless of the circumstance, he was someone you could count on. He was a great man, a great friend, a great Dad, and we loved him dearly.
Life Lessons I learned from Roy E. Ray
It's been a hard year since Roy left. There hasn't been but a handful of days that I haven't thought about him since then.
7.Carry your tea wherever you go.
Roy never went anywhere without his own cup of tea. It was almost always in those cups we would so carefully collect from the stands at the end of a Bearcat playoff game at "Jerry's world.”
6. Don't allow the phone to interrupt important moments.
In the year or two before Roy passed he would fuss at us if we had our phones out at the restaurant. He would want to talk. I think he knew we would want those memories and would have missed making them if we were on our phones.
5. Stand tall. Never back down from a fight.
When I first met Roy back in 1980 I thought he was a giant. He was so tall! I never did see him fight because he would never have to. He carried himself in such a way that people decided they didn't need to fight him. I always felt safe with him because nobody was going to mess with him.
4. Spoil your loved ones and yourself.
My favorite gift under the Christmas tree was something that Roy would have picked out himself. It was usually some jewelry and was usually beautiful. One year he got all us girls a long long string of pearls. They are one of my most prized possessions. Last July 4, he bought a charm bracelet of the month subscription for me. I have cherished getting each one because he is still with me and still spoiling me.
3. Live.
I remember one time we were eating breakfast some time in 2022 and a song came on, I Lived, by OneRepublic. He said that song was one he wanted played at his funeral. I got up from the table and went to the restroom and bawled my eyes out. It was the first time the thought crossed my mind of a world without my parents. It was a frightening thought for me and a scary world to envision. The chorus was his favorite part.
I owned every second that this world could give
I saw so many places
The things that I did
Yeah, with every broken bone
I swear I lived
2. Love your team(s) with all your heart.
Roy loved his Bearcats and Horned Frogs. On any given Friday night you knew where you could find him, He was at the game. His entire wardrobe was either orange or purple.
1. Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you love them.
This one is tricky for me because he was my stepdad. I felt uncomfortable for a long time telling him that I loved him. As if it was a dishonor to my dad. I hope he knew how much he meant to me. When he became sick I never ended a phone conversation without saying "Love ya!" Each time I said it became easier and easier. I wished I had started saying it sooner.
It's hard to believe that he is gone. Somehow in my mind I thought he would live to be 100 like Grandmother Ray.
My memories of my father are tied to two things: breakfast and sports.
As far back as I can remember, he was always the one to cook breakfast in the morning. When all my siblings had moved out, and I was the only child left in the house who refused to eat breakfast most mornings, he started going out to eat breakfast.
At first McDonald’s, then Whataburger, then several other local places around town, but you had to be careful if you told him you’d liked something because you would get it every single day. He got better over time and would actually ask if you wanted something for breakfast. In fact, I have a saved voicemail from him, asking for my breakfast order. I don’t plan on deleting that voicemail, it’s only five seconds and helps me remember him.
Sports being the other big memory of him, going to Desiree’s basketball games, playing under the stadium during football games (both Aledo and TCU), he was an avid Aledo fan — all sports.
When I was an equipment manager for the Texas Tech Football program during college, he would come to Lubbock (when Aledo had a bye-week game) to support me there. It was my unofficial tradition to call him on Sundays to talk about whatever game was on or go over the bad call, and he would brief me on who was leading the golf tournament.
The third big memory of my father is actually from the 1995 hailstorm. If you’re new to the area, this was a big storm, very destructive for no tornado — houses were totaled. As soon as it had stopped raining and hailing, he fought his way to the his car through the massive hail slides in the front yard to go check on grandmother, his mother, just up the road from our house. He couldn’t drive back to physically check in with Mona so he came back to the house and called her. My mother had been out in the storm and had was actually been caught in her car during the storm and this was right around the beginning of cell phones and they weren’t as reliable as they were today.
He was able to track her down to a friend’s house but then he gathered up all the notepads in the house, got the phone and sat down at the table and I was like, “what are you doing, dad?”
But he knew thats his clients would start calling, and they did — he talked on the phone for hours, late into the night, because he always wanted to have someone speak with a person, even if it was just to take a message. My first job was taking messages at the insurance office, because someone was always there to answer the phone. He would always answer those messages even if he had spoken with you, you called, he would return your call or text you back when we finally convinced him to get a cell phone, you could call him and ask about text or email, speak about it, then get his reply, it was just his way.
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