Friday, April 26, 2024
Willis Dale Warner, age 82, passed away on September 29, 2022, in Lampasas, after a courageous battle with cancer. He was born on February 29, 1940, in Izoro, to Charles Everett Warner and Ada Elizabeth Hammett Warner.
Funeral services will be held at Sneed-Carnley Funeral Chapel on Saturday, Oct. 8, at 10 a.m. with interment to follow at Hines Chapel Cemetery in Adamsville.
Willis began the first grade with Miss Holly Parsons, he then attended grade school in Levita and graduated from Jonesboro High School in 1959. After high school, he moved back to Izoro and began his own business as an independent contractor, installing plumbing, heating, and air conditioning in new construction homes in Copperas Cove. Two years later in 1961, he joined the Air Force, where he served for four years. While there, he completed Heating Specialist Training at U.S. Naval Schools Construction in Port Hueneme, California. He then served at Osan Air Base in South Korea at the Hospital as the Boiler Plant Operator. In 1963, he was assigned to 65th Strategic Aerospace at Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico. He was a member of the AeroClub and completed his first solo flight in 1964.
After serving in the Air Force, he attended several aeronautical training schools, receiving diplomas and certificates from Spartan School of Aeronautics in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Piper Aircraft Corp. in Lockhaven, Pennsylvania, General Electrical Aircraft Engine Sectional Maintenance, Evendale Technical Training School in Cincinnati, Ohio, Lycoming Service School in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, General Motors in Indianapolis, Indiana. He worked in Beaumont, Texas, Olathe, Kansas and Dallas in aeronautics as a mechanic, inspector and trainer. He wrote a training manual on the CF-6 jet engine and taught training school at Southwest Airmotive, Dallas Love Field, where he was promoted to foreman of the CF-6 product line. Students from all over the country came to take his classes there.
He married Betty Ann Wilkie in Westville, Oklahoma on April 2, 1966. In 1975, he left the aeronautics industry to move home to Izoro to his ranch where he raised cattle and worked at Evant ISD as the school bus maintenance mechanic and as a bus driver where his daughter Annette began kindergarten. He later worked as the plant maintenance supervisor at Deck Boat in Gatesville and was then owner/operator of Warner's Garage in Evant. From there he worked for Santa Fe Oil and Pipeline on the Tonkawa barge maintaining the diesel engines. He worked as an auto mechanic and service manager for Benny Boyd Dodge Chrysler Jeep, Hoffpauir Chevrolet, Hoffpauir Ford, Gene Jones Ford, and Hal Harton Ford all of Lampasas. Also, Highland Autoplex, Maxwell Auto, and Sue Harton Chevrolet, where he retired at age 62. He had earned training certifications from Dodge, Ford and Chevrolet. Later he worked part-time for Tommy Foster, Norris Monroe, Jeff Cockburn and Tom York in Lampasas. He had rebuilt engines on cars, trucks, boats, heavy equipment, airplanes and helicopters. He was fascinated with all things mechanical and electrical and meticulously broke them down and put them back together.
He loved bluegrass, country and rock and roll, and he played the acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, mandolin, harmonica, and balalaika. For many years he played music at the annual Sausage Fest at the Lutheran Church in Copperas Cove, and he enjoyed playing music at the Oatmeal Music Fest, Adamsville Music Hall and the Pearl Bluegrass Jam.
He was a proud native Texan, whose third great-grandfather (Captain Andrew Bell Caddell) fought at the Battle of San Jacinto.
He loved his children and grandchildren, his cousins and his dear neighbors in Lampasas. He was preceded in death by his wife, his parents and his aunts and uncles.
He is survived by his daughter, Annette Moore, and husband, James Moore; a son, Dale Everett Warner; a grandson, James Edwin (Jem) Moore and a granddaughter, Torri Alexis Gutierrez Warner.
Memorial donations may be made to the Pearl Community Center, Bluegrass Jam, C/O Bettie Blakley, 2082 FM 1690, Gatesville, TX, 76528 or Baylor Scott and White Vasicek Cancer Treatment Center, 2401 S. 31st, Temple, TX, 76508.
