Neal Austin Reust

God called our loved one Neal Reust home on October 10th 2024.

Neal was a good old Okie, born January 3, 1942 in Sayre Oklahoma to Austin and Ruth and lived in Cheyenne Oklahoma for his first 9 years. In Cheyenne, he attended a one room school house where they were served pinto beans and bread for lunch. Before lunch they would always say the Lord's Prayer and he claimed for the rest of his life when he heard the Lord's Prayer, he could smell pinto beans. While living in Cheyenne, his brother Dale was born. We all know Neal as a kind and gentle man, but his favorite childhood story was about the time he chopped Dale in the head with a hoe.

Neal started shingling houses at 12 with his father and worked for him throughout high school and into his young adult life. His youngest brother Chris was welcomed to the Reust family in 1960 in Farmington NM.

According to his wife, his life was pretty uneventful until he met Kaye Marshall at NMSU and they married in 1962. One night while working for his father in Window Rock, AZ the temperature reached 40 below zero. The next day he thawed out his car, loaded his pregnant wife into it, and headed for Phoenix, the warmest place he could find on the map. There he started driving for UPS and his first son Keven was welcomed into the family. A few years later Allan was added to the brood. At UPS Neal was rapidly promoted and his success in tracing lost packages was legendary. When asked how he did it he said, "I just ask myself if I were a lost package where would I be". Then after experiencing the longest week of his life by Tuesday, he left UPS to train as an electronic technician and found himself in Alice Springs Australia.

His most exciting times were in Alice Springs where he and his wife lived for 15 years. Neal and Kaye were perfectly suited for life in the outback. They enjoyed many camping trips with friends and Neal found his favorite toy; a tiny green Suzuki 4WD. They enjoyed traveling and Neal fished all over the country. His most exciting trip was in Northern Australia were they had to fight the crocodiles for the fish.

In 1997 they moved to Washington DC for four years before finally retiring to Las Cruces in 2001. Neal enjoyed tinkering in his garage, volunteering and traveling the world with Kaye. In 2007 Neal began an affair with a 17 foot fiberglass travel trailer and together with Kaye they traveled most of the US and Canada. His last camping trip was in August of this year with his family just before seeing his youngest grandson Michael off to college He also got the happy news in August that his oldest grandson, Alex and his wife Sara were expecting his first great grandson.

God gave him a peaceful death while he was still physically and mentally active and enjoying his life. Just last summer he was getting annoyed by his family yelling at him for being on the roof of Allan's house, in July, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, fixing an air conditioner. He was not a man to cause a fuss and he went to his maker calmly and peacefully, God has truly blessed us with his person and in the manner of his passing.