James Kent Cox Sr.

Funeral: 2 p.m. Thursday at Moore Funeral Home, 1219 N. Davis Drive. Arlington. Visitation: 1 to 2 p.m. Thursday at the funeral home.

Memorials: The family suggests memorials in memory of Kent to the Salvation Army at www.salvationarmyusa.org.

Kent was born Oct. 25, 1921, in Crowell to Albert Luther Cox and Luna Mae Shield Cox. He married Dorothy Yarbrough on Nov. 1, 1941, in Frederick, Okla. They were married for 72 years. Kent moved in 1926 from Crowell to Vernon, where he finished high school and was named most valuable football player in 1939. He proudly served in the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II, from 1943 to 1946. He worked in the Wilbarger County Sheriff's Department and Vernon Police Department as deputy sheriff and police captain, then in the security department at Chance Vought in Grand Prairie. Kent was a sales representative for Planters Nut Co., which later merged with Standard Brands for 20 years. After Standard Brands merged with Nabisco, he worked for Russell-Moss Food Brokers and retired to live on Lake LBJ for years before moving back to Crowley and then to the Courtyards Retirement Center in Fort Worth.

Kent was preceded in death by his parents; brothers, Norman, Owen, Robert and Ray; sisters, Leone Williams and Irene White; and grandson, Mac McLellan.

Survivors: His loving wife, Dorothy; son, James Kent Cox Jr. and wife, Gloria, of San Antonio; daughters, Sandra Jean Cain of Hillsboro and Nancy Ruth Brown and husband, Gary, of Fort Worth; five grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; seven great-great-grandchildren; and younger brother, Joe Cullen Cox of Austin.