SMILEY, LEWIS M., JR.

Born August 4, 1924 in Mexia, Texas, Lewis “Sonny” Marion Smiley, Jr., passed away at his home on May 18, 2015 in Grand Prairie, Texas.

A contract administrator by profession (working for Mobil and U.S. military in various civilian capacities), Lewis also was a Civilian Conservation Corps volunteer, a soldier in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War (Marines), a delivery boy for the Waco Herald Tribune, as well as father and husband. Lewis was a proud alum of Baylor University, where he graduated with B.B.A. in 1953, having previously attended the University of Texas at Austin, and Sul Ross State University.

Driven by an almost restive energy to strike out and see the world, Lewis in his youth hitchhiked to California and Colorado (where he joined the CCC), found himself as Marine private in Guadalcanal for the Battle of Edson’s Ridge, and spent the majority of his professional life working outside the United States: in Venezuela, Libya, South Vietnam and Saudi Arabia.

A Veterans of Foreign Wars member and a Mason, he is survived by his current wife, as a well a wife from a previous marriage, his three siblings, four sons, nine grandchildren, and an extended family of loved ones.