Jean "Gee Gee" Arnett

The family will receive friends for a visitation on Sunday June 16, 2013 from 2:00 until 4:00 pm. Funeral services will be Monday, June 17th at 3:00pm at Broadway Church of Christ with Joe Barnett officiating. Burial will be at Resthaven Memorial Park under the direction of Resthaven Funeral Home.

She was born July 16, 1929 in Dallas and lived in San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans and Ft. Worth, returning to Dallas for her senior year in high school. She graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1946. In 1950 she received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a member of the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority, Cap and Gown Council and The Advertising Club. Upon graduation she became advertising manager of Austex Food and was active in her sorority alumnae chapter, the Austin Advertising Club and Altrusa International.

She became assistant brand manager of Anderson Clayton Food in Dallas in 1956 followed by an account manager’s position with a local advertising agency.

She married A.C. Arnett November 30, 1957, and moved with her husband to Lubbock to become a co-founder of Arnett Brokerage Company. For the first year she was employed in the Adjudication Division of the Veterans Administration.

She and her husband were active in quarter horse breeding and racing and owned Lubbock Downs from 1980 until its sale in 2000. After pari-mutual racing became legal in Texas she was granted a license by the Texas Racing Commission to construct a Class II track in Lubbock County, but attempt to finance the facility were unsuccessful, and Lubbock Downs was sold.

In Lubbock she has been active with her sorority alumnae chapter, served on the Board of Camp Fire Girls and on the Lubbock Board of Health, was a member of the Ladies Golf Association of Lubbock Country Club, the Lubbock Food Brokers Association and of the Association of Sales & Marketing Company. She was a Life Member of the Texas Exes Association and a member of the Texas Tech Chancellor’s Council. She has been a volunteer with the American Cancer Society as well as other civic and charity organizations. She was a member of Broadway Church of Christ for more than 30 years and was a member of the Classic 9 Bible Class and Growth Group.

Following the death of her husband in 1987, she assumed the duties of president of Arnett Brokerage Company, where she was employed for 44 years prior to her retirement in 2001.

She is survived by a son and wife Alvin and Lori Arnett of Dallas, a daughter Allison Arnett of Lubbock, three step-daughters: Diane and Don Rogers of Richwood, Nell and Don English of Lake Jackson, and Carol and Randy Redinger of Hale Center, 12 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren; and one sister Martha Owens of Eden. Jean is preceded in death by parents, her husband, her sisters Betty Hill and Nancy Purtell, and step-daughter Lou Weitner.

The family suggests memorials to The Lubbock Children’s Home, P.O. Box 2449, Lubbock, TX 79408-9910, Accolade Hospice of Lubbock 5201 Indiana Avenue Suite 101 S Lubbock, TX 79413, or to a favorite charity.

Condolences may be offered at www.resthavenfuneralhome.com