Rev. Dr. Robert M. Carson Jr., age 97, of Amarillo, Texas passed away on Sunday, June 2, 2024. Funeral services are scheduled for 10am, Tuesday, June 11, 2024 at Memorial Park Funeral Home, Chapel of Memories, in Amarillo, Texas.
Dr. Carson graduated from high school in May of 1945 and was inducted into the United States Army AIr Corps a week after that; having enlisted in the Air Corps Reserve two years earlier due to World War II. He received his honorable discharge as a Sergeant in November 1946. He later enlisted in the Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps, received a commission as a Second Lieutenant and was honorably discharged several years later as a First Lieutenant.
In the meantime, he had graduated from college with honors, receiving a B.A. degree. He then went right on to Law School and graduated in May 1952 with a Bachelor of Law degree (later re-designated as a Juris Doctor degree.) He was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review during his senior year. He then practiced law with his father until September 1957 when he left law practice to enroll as a student in seminary, after having resisted a persistent urge (call) to do so for over seven years. (He was in court on a Friday as a lawyer and preaching as a student pastor in a 120-member area church two days later.) He graduated from seminary in May 1961 with several academic awards, and ordained by his Presbytery in June 1961.
During the succeeding years, his responsibilities included being pastor (head of staff) in two large Presbyterian churches, leadership roles in several Presbyteries, president of the board of directors of a church camp, a Vice President in the trust department of a large big-city bank, where he had a specialized role using both his legal and pastoral skills, and in his semi-retirement, pastor of several small churches, including St. Luke Presbyterian church locally.
In 1990, he married his beloved wife, Bonnie Smith (Cringle) Carson. Following his retirement, he and she traveled extensively over the United States for over ten years in their motorhome. Dr. Carson has loved to travel all his life. He has been to the Holy Land, Greece, China (for nearly three weeks shortly after the borders were opened to westerners in the mid-1980s for the first time in many, many years), Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, Hawaii, various Mediterranean ports (including Nassau, where he preached in the Kirk of St. Andrew two different summers while the full-time pastor was on vacation), the Panama Canal, Costa Rica, Canada and Mexico.
He is a Past Master of his Masonic Lodge and a member of various other Masonic organizations. He has been both a Kiwanian and a Rotarian. While a member of Rotary, he achieved a John Harris Fellowship.
He was preceded in death by his parents; his two brothers and his wife, Bonnie.
He has numerous survivors scattered over the United States, including children, step-children, and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Memorial gifts may be sent to St. Luke Presbyterian Church at 3001 Bell Street Amarillo, Texas 79106 or to a favorite charity.
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