Joe Parsons

1956 - 2025

Joe Lansing Parsons was an Austin original. He was born and died here. His life – an adventure – embodied the city he called home. The paths he journeyed took him to far reaches of America and the globe. A motorcycle ride across the country with a beloved boyhood friend riding behind him. A move to Maine where he would find the love of his life before they eventually moved together to the other side of the planet south of the equator to give birth to their daughter in New Zealand.
Between these forays, he built this city of Austin as it grew from a sleepy college and government town to a high-tech mecca of computer chips and glass towers.
As Austin struggled to maintain its reputation for being weird, Joe Parsons worked his entire life to keep it wired.
A "country boy" of sort, "Jody" was born Sept. 17, 1956, and grew up in Lakewood along the banks of Bull Creek spilling forth from Spicewood Springs before emptying into Lake Austin. He loved Austin always, never complaining, like so many do, lamenting Austin's prosperity. Instead, his life's path took him on hikes over the rocky, cedar-covered hills to make new lifelong friends with the "new" settlers of Northwest Hills, Highland Hills and Allandale. As his life went on, he remained aware of and fully engaged with his city's evolution.
As many of his friends headed to the University of Texas and other colleges to chase their dreams, Joe chose to learn the mechanical trades of his grandfather, Newton "Daddy" Gilbert, and his father, Art Parsons, eventually becoming a master electrician. His was the life of a union man with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 520 – every year recommitting himself to the rights of workers and re-upping his license to practice his craft all the way up until just weeks before he succumbed to cancer at the age of 69 on Oct. 15, 2025.
Joe never missed an election and used his strong sense of citizenship to teach civics to anyone who would listen, especially his daughter Krystal, always ready to debate the issues that mattered to him. If you were not in his presence for these discussions you'd better carve out at least an hour's time to take it up in a return of his phone call. But he never imposed his will on the civil discourse and decisions of others. Throughout her childhood, Krystal accompanied "Daddy" to the polls before they opened at 7 o'clock in the morning. And when she reached voting age, Joe provided her a League of Women's Voters nonpartisan voters' guide, instructing "now you have to decide how to vote." He never revealed to his daughter how he marked his ballot until after they both voted. He merely wanted his child to know the preciousness of a citizen's voice.
But before these life lessons, Krystal had to get here. Joe met the love of his life, Kim Newcomb, in Maine, where her father was living. They met on a blind date, Joe with his Hill Country Texas accent and Kim with her thick New Zealand manner of speaking, an encounter that evoked laughs for years to come. They wed in 1989 in Maine. When Kim became pregnant, she grew homesick for New Zealand, her mother and other family. Joe dropped everything and moved there to support her. Wiring buildings in America and learning to do the same thing in the land of kiwi was quite a switch. They planned to live there until "Joe began to miss Longhorn football, Thanksgiving and, of course, his family in Texas." But their child's arrival came first. While he was still working to help build New Zealand, he went to the hospital where Kim was about to give birth. Joe showed up still dressed in the UT burnt orange he often wore to work. Their little girl delivered and healthy, Joe soon disappeared. Soon after, he reappeared at the hospital after changing into a "suit and tie." Kim asked her husband what he was up to. He told her he wanted to "formally introduce" himself to his daughter, to which Kim later said in her strong New Zealand accent, "my heart grew eight times larger."
Joe's love for Texas history, particularly the story of the Alamo, was steadfast. Krystal remembers her father reading a children's book about Alamo survivor Susanna Dickinson. That experience helped Krystal learn about "women's voices in history, which are often overlooked." Years later when Krystal was planning her own wedding to her husband, Mason, Joe checked to see if they could possibly get married at the Alamo. That wasn't an option, so Krystal set her sights on getting married at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. She was a big fan of Lady Bird and LBJ. Krystal helped reshape Joe's view of the former president through fresh eyes not shrouded by the dark cloud of the Vietnam war.
Joe's living room, with frames of signed jerseys and specially shelved game footballs, serves as a shrine to Longhorn fanaticism. In the kitchen's refrigerator, one might find cold bottles of root beer. On a family trip to colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, Joe discovered historical Chowning's Tavern and the concoction it bottles. Years later, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the family looked into having this root beer shipped to Texas to provide bright moments during the quarantine. He continued to have bottles of the stuff shipped to Austin to give to friends and family.
It's difficult to remember when he dropped the nickname Jody. Perhaps it was when he felt he had become a young man completed. With that he worked to complete his city. Starting his career in Austin in 1981, Joe worked on such projects as Michael Dell's home, numerous academic buildings across the UT's Forty Acres and state government buildings around the Capitol, the expansions of Darrell K Royal Stadium, renovations to IBM's facilities near the Domain and historic sites across the state including the Fayette County Courthouse in La Grange.
Joe is predeceased by his grandparents, Audie Gilbert and husband Newton Gilbert; mother, Ann Parsons Marsh and father Arthur Roy Parsons; uncle, Henry Gilbert; father-in-law, Philip L. Newcomb; brothers, Mickey D. Parsons and Arthur "Bret" Parsons; and brother-in-law, David P. Newcomb.
Joe is survived by his wife, Kimberly Joy Parsons; daughter Krystal Joy Parsons and her husband, Mason Scheer; aunt Delores Baccus and her husband, Ralph Baccus; mother-in-law Gail Newcomb; sisters Sheria Cole and her husband Jack Cole and Ann Missy Taylor and her husband Stoney Taylor; sisters-in-law Vicki Newcomb and Sandra Newcomb; cousin Richard Baccus and his wife Sara Baccus; many nieces and nephews: Michael Parsons, Damion Newcomb and his wife Rachel Newcomb, Jonnie Newcomb and his wife Tarlia Newcomb, Sheria Ripper and her husband Wes Ripper, Jordan Ulrich and her husband Brian Ulrich, Brooke Taylor, Brian Starcher, Danielle Newcomb, Adam Lloyd and Maddie Ashworth; and great nieces and nephews Abby and Ally Parsons, Lilly Newcomb and Dagen Newcomb, Boston and Poppy Newcomb, Hailey Ripper, Nolan Ulrich and Lucy Lloyd. He is also survived by his kitties, Simba and Ziggy Parsons.
There will be a celebration of Joe's life at 11 a.m. Monday, Nov. 10, at Harrell Funeral Home, 4435 Frontier Trail, in Austin. Suggested attire is "Longhorn best – think Sunday best with more burnt orange."
All will remember the generosity of Joe's heart. Upon taking off his electrician's leather tool belt and leaving job sites to grab a bite for lunch or heading to special dinners out with family, Joe was known to come across others who were homeless and most likely hungry with outstretched arms looking for a handout. It's part of living in a growing city – the one Joe helped build. He would not hand them change or a dollar bill but rather take them into the eatery and buy them a meal. In telling this story, Kim's eyes glistened with the tears of a woman recalling a love for her husband and best friend of 36 years.
In lieu of flowers, Joe would like to encourage people to consider donations to World Central Kitchen.