Billy Leeman Lakey
Funeral services for Billy Leeman Lakey, 68, of Bonham will be held at 2:00 PM, Saturday, June 21, 2008, in Wise Funeral Home chapel. The Rev. Troy Miles, the Rev. Johnny Martin, and Terry Mayfield will officiate. Burial with military honors will follow in McWright Cemetery near Celeste. The family will receive friends at Wise Funeral Home from 1:00 PM until service time Saturday. Billy passed away June 13, 2008, at the Dallas VA Hospital. Billy was born October 20, 1939, in Bonham, the son of Virgil Harmon Lakey and Bessie Lee Dillard Lakey. He was a 1958 graduate of Dodd City High School and attended Grayson County Junior College from 1975 to 1978. He was a US Army veteran and served during the Vietnam War (1963-1965). He married, Billie Imogean “Jeannie” on February 18, 1966. Billy spent thirty-eight years in retail management. He began working for White’s Auto on the Bonham square at age eighteen and was there for fourteen years. He helped open the first Bonham Wal-Mart store in the 1970's and then spent twenty-four years at both Greenville Wal-Mart stores. He lived in Brashear (Hopkins County) for twenty-four years before retiring and moving back to Bonham in March of 2000.
Billy was a man of many talents and a perfect gentleman. He enjoyed art, playing the guitar, singing and fishing, and his dog, Nate. He loved pets and his family and friends. Billy was a member of the First Pentecostal Church of God in Bonham.
He was preceded in death by his parents; brothers Euless Lakey, Willie Arthur Lakey, Clarence Lakey, Buster Lakey, and Buford Lakey; and two sisters, Vena Craig and Thelma Lakey.
Surviving are his wife of forty-three years of Bonham; sons Billy Lakey, Jr., and Pancho Lakey, both of Bonham; two daughters, Tina Gannon of Irving and Lisa Mayfield of Royse City; brothers Roy Lakey of Ravenna and Jimmy Lakey of Corsicana; two sisters, Virgie Stroud of Bonham and Ella Caughron of Big Sandy; six grandchildren, Jammie, Jacinta, Nicole, Breanna, Shandolyn, and Bobby; five great-grandchildren, Kasey Deshawn Brown, Mathew Atchley, Alex Atchley, Andrea Atchley, and Maddison Atchley; and sisters-in-law Glenda Lakey, Betty Lakey, Sally Brumley, Wanda Erwin, Mary Latham and Vicki Steen of the Kingston area.
Pallbearers will be Ray Lakey, Bobby Lakey, Lance Fry, James Brown, Shawn Atchley, Aaron Atchley, Austin Lynch, and Jimmy Dale Lakey.
Billy is with God whom he loved so dearly. He touched all of our hearts in so many special ways and will be missed and loved forever.
(June 17, 2008, The Greenville Herald Banner)
Submitted by Sarah Swindell
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