Josey Potter

Josey Lee Potter, 39, passed away on August 12, 2025.

A visitation will be held at Caldwell Parrish Funeral Home (8201 Hickman Rd.) on Monday, August 18, 2025, from 4 - 7 p.m. Funeral Service will be held in the same location on Tuesday, August 19, 2025 at 10 a.m. with live streaming available for those who cannot attend in person.

Josey was born on September 25, 1985 in Springfield, Ohio to Leesa Whitt-Potter and Rick Potter. Josey moved to Iowa in 1999 with his family, where he graduated from Waukee High School in 2004. He excelled in athletics, particularly football. After high school, he moved to Iowa City and received his degree from Kirkwood Community College.

After school, Josey had a successful career at Wells Fargo for 15 years, where he loved managing several different teams and began building up his massive patterned socks and watch collections. One of Josey’s many career accomplishments included receiving the prestigious Service Excellence Award for his commitment and contributions to his team.

Josey was a diehard Ohio State Buckeyes and Cincinnati Bengals fan, and boy did he love his dippin’ sauces when it came to game time. If you showed up with fewer than 15 sauces, you were not permitted to watch the game in his presence.

Josey loved movies and TV and was as obsessed with quoting random movie lines as his brother, Jarren. More than anything though, he loved the time he spent with his friends, and later in life, his friends’ growing families. From the early years of having his friends over to watch WrestleMania on pay-per-view to the more recent years of visiting his cousins’ young families for trips to Disney World, Josey was a kid at heart with an infectious smile and laugh. It was easy for Josey to transition from hanging out with a group of his adult friends to playtime with the kids in the room. His biggest goal in life was to make those around him laugh by any means necessary, which was often accomplished through well-executed pranks. Whether you were his dad mowing the lawn realizing you’d been shot with an airsoft BB from 50 feet away or one of his friends’ kids realizing you’d been marked by a Sharpie no fewer than 10 times after only an hour in his company, nobody was safe from the stealthy antics of a naturally ornery prankster.

Josey loved his family. Over the years, he enjoyed frequent amusement park-centric family vacations, and you better believe he knew how to find every camera on a rollercoaster. He thrived at lively large gatherings for sporting events and holidays and was particularly creative when it came to Halloween costumes. His competitive spirit shone in annual games of Christmas Eve Monopoly, in which he negotiated with abandon despite his mother insisting on playing the banker (so she could cheat). In recent years, he enjoyed the fellowship of the Lutheran Church of Hope community alongside his mother.

Those left to cherish Josey’s memory include his mother, Leesa Whitt-Potter, and his father, Rick Potter; his brother Jarren (Elle Wignall); his paternal grandparents Lou and William Crabtree; and a large extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins whom he loved dearly. He was preceded in death by his maternal grandmother, Jacqueline Fligor and his maternal grandfather Bill Whitt.