Bobby J. Wheat

Bobby Joe “Bob” Wheat, 79, passed away September 15, 2010 in Oklahoma City. Bob was born April 20, 1931 in County Line, Oklahoma to Cloyce Raymond and Reba Josephine (Ray) Wheat. The family, including his older sister Doris, moved to East Texas where he had happy memories of living with his mother and daddy and playing in the castor beans. His daddy’s life was cut tragically short in an oil field accident when Bob was just four years old.

Bob and Doris lived at their grandparent’s farm for two years during the dust bowl years of the Depression. When Doris started school, Bob’s day continued following his grandmother around feeding the chickens and watering the garden from a syrup bucket with a measuring cup. This is also where his lifelong love of animals began.

In 1939, Reba moved the family to Hobbs, New Mexico to live with an uncle. This is where Bob started school. He picked cotton as a child and, with the shortage of labor during the war, started roughnecking at age 13 to pay for his clothing and help support the family.

An oil boom brought the family to Sundown Texas, when Bob was in the fourth grade. He found a little girl to torment on the playground who several years later became his wife Sue. He graduated from Sundown High School in 1949 in the largest graduating class ever with 34 graduates. Bob and his classmates continued to meet regularly – most recently in June of this year.

He attended West Texas State for his college freshman year before receiving a “Greetings from The President.” Bob was inducted into the US Army at Fort Sill Oklahoma. He served most of his enlistment in Fort Rucker Alabama as an infantryman and a supply clerk. He received shipping orders to Korea the week before the armistice was signed. With no need to ship out, he requested and received an early discharge to attend Texas Tech University. At Tech he developed a renewed friendship with Sue LaMar and earned his Bachelor of Science Degree in Geology. His career took him all over the western United States working as a drilling rig mud logger in spectacular settings such as the Henry Mountains of Utah, the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and the Medicine Bows in Colorado.

Bob married Sue on Christmas Eve of 1959 and raised John, Don and Elizabeth. Following short stays in Farmington, NM, and Midland, TX, the family settled in Oklahoma City where he started Wheat Hydrocarbon Logging Company.

He loved to drive and look at the scenery. The family vacationed in the mountains of Colorado and later all over the United States as John moved around with the Navy. All trips were a lesson in geology and drainage features. Many battles of the Civil War and the west were fought repeatedly as Bob toured historical sites.

At the urging of Don, Bob bought “The Farm” in Canadian County in 1974. He built ponds and raised Navajo sheep, pygmy goats, burros, horses and llamas. Mr. Wheat even owned his own wheat field. It became his haven.

Bob enjoyed his six grandchildren. He loved to take them to Sheplers to outfit them in complete western outfits. The girls wore beautiful dresses that Bob and Sue loved to shop for. The vacation trips continued with the next generation.

In recent years he lived in the Copper Lakes Estates where he continued to make very good friends. He was elected king of the Senior Prom along with his buddy and best friend Queen Vera Blackburn.

He was preceded in death by his parents and his wife of 44 years, Sue LaMar Wheat. Bob is survived by his daughter, Elizabeth Slocomb and her husband, Roger; sons, John Wheat and his wife, Dana, and Don Wheat and his wife, Myra; sister, Doris Edwards; grandchildren, Bobby Joe Wheat II and Haley, Charlie Slocomb and Laura, Heather Wheat, Jamie Wheat and Lauren, James Slocomb and Stephanie Wheat. Great-grand children Eisley and Nathan. Services will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, September 20, 2010 in the Bill Merritt Memorial Chapel with interment at 3:00 p.m. in the Old Velma Cemetery in Velma, Oklahoma.