Robert "Bob" Jackson

Robert 'Bob' Jackson Funeral services are set for 10 a.m. Thursday, June 15, in Morrison Funeral Chapel in Dumas for Robert "Bob" Jackson who died shortly after noon Monday, June 12, 2006, in Prairie House Living Center. Dr. Edward Tubbs, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dumas, will officiate. Burial will be in Northlawn Memorial Gardens under the direction of Morrison Funeral Directors. Born April 29, 1927, in Scituate, Mass., he was the son of Charles Frederick and Sylvia Jackson. His boyhood home, an Atlantic coastal fishing and lobstering village north of Plymouth, Mass., traces its history prior to the Revolutionary War. Jackson left school at 17 to enlist in the U.S. Navy. He served as a gunnery crewman in the Pacific aboard the aircraft carrier USS Shangri-La. (CV38). His service spanned the launching of the new carrier to its arrival in the Sea of Japan after the end of World War II. A short time after discharge from the Navy in 1946, he enlisted in the Army and was trained as an artilleryman at Fort Bliss. While assigned to troop training at Fort Custer, Mich., Jackson was deployed with a contingent of soldiers to the Korean theater. He served with the 92nd Armored Field Artillery Battalion, a legendary unit dubbed the Brave Cannons but better known as the Red Devils. After the Korean Conflict he was discharged from the Army at Camp Drum, N.Y., at the rank of sergeant first class. On Sept 12, 1953, he married Barbara Irene Crowell in Harbor Methodist Church in Scituate, Mass. About that time Jackson began formal training to become a lifelong painter and wallpaper hanger and would also become a lifelong minister. He entered the painting trade in August 1955, under apprenticeship of William J. Hudson Painting in Norwell, Mass., as part of the Division of Apprentice Training Program of the Department of Labor, Commonwealth of Mass. As a trained craftsman he followed the example of his father, who was a noted piano tuner in his native Scituate. Answering a call to ministry as an Independent Baptist, he enrolled at Elohim Bible Institute in Warsaw, N.Y., and graduated on June 21, 1959 - the same day his first child, daughter Leah, was born. He accepted pastoral assignments in Maine and later served congregations in Coatsesville and Connelsville, Pa., including pastorate of the Church of the Open Door. Having resided along the Eastern seaboard early in his marriage, Jackson made a major move to the Midwest in the late 1960s to pursue ministerial duties in Albuquerque, N.M., and later in Morse. He later moved to Dumas where he founded Bob Jackson Painting, remaining there almost 30 years before moving to Plainview several years ago. Jackson was a member of the First Baptist Church of Dumas. He served for many years as a supply minister to Baptist churches in the Texas Panhandle. He founded a weekly religious radio program, "For Times Like These," on a Dumas station. Jackson was an avid Dumas Demons football booster and was honored by the team in 1984 as a "Super Fan," recognized for staging an annual sideline ice cream feed for the team during pre-season practice. He also was a participant in annual Career Day activities at Dumas High School and the annual Doggie Days parade as a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of Dumas. He is survived by wife, Barbara, of Plainview; two brothers, Wally of Brockton, Mass., and George of Scituate, Mass.; daughter, Leah Zeigler and son-in-law Gordon Zeigler of Plainview; son, Stephen Robert Jackson and daughter-in-law Becky Jackson of Pampa; and daughter, Beth Jackson of Dumas; and four grandchildren, Amy Jackson of Wichita Falls, Erin Zeigler of Amarillo, Katy Zeigler of Plainview and Paul Robert Jackson of Amarillo. He was preceded in death by a sister, Evelyn, of Pensacola, Fla. Visitation will be from 4-6 p.m. Wednesday at Morrison Funeral Home.