Dennis Alton Wilkinson

Born June 27, 1948, in Biloxi, Mississippi, Dennis was the second-born son of a yankee firecracker Alma (Conger) and southern gentleman William Wilkinson. Along with his dear big brother Bill, they formed a tight-knit family bound together by love and deep devotion. Together they built an airstream trailer from scratch they named AWOL and adventured across the country, from Air Force base to base, forming cherished family memories.

His first solo adventure took him to Southern Methodist University for college where he was the life of the party, a friend to everyone, and even ran the mascot mustang Peruna up and down the football field after touchdowns. On October 6, 1968, he took the most beautiful woman he had ever seen on a date, the last first date either would ever have. As they walked across a field at sunset, he gathered all the courage he could muster and reached for her hand. He said it was magic. And that was that. Three years later he and Linda Allison were married.

His adventures didn’t stop there, now with the love of his life by his side, as he joined the Air Force to fly T-38s and C-130s across the world. When he started pilot training, he was the only one pulling into the parking lot in a blue volkswagen beetle with a big peace sign on the tailgate. It caused quite the stir on base and even resulted in some reprimands from commanding officers in the heightened political climate of the early 1970s, but Dennis stood firm because his belief in promoting, preserving, and pushing peace ran deep and true.

For someone who was afraid of heights, it was thrilling to hear his tales of flight and see the pure joy on his face when he spoke of soaring through the skies. There was something about it that brought him closer to God and inspired a sense of awe in him. His love of flying planes and teaching others to fly took them to San Antonio and Valdosta and to Okinawa and Tokyo. But no matter how far they traveled and no matter how high he flew, he could not escape the calling from God.

In 1976, he and his newly pregnant wife journeyed home from Japan so he could attend Iliff School of Theology where he earned his Masters of Divinity. A few short months later, perhaps the greatest adventure of his life began when their first child was born, Aaron Robert. They added two more children, Graham Edward and Sarah Lucille, along the way.

Throughout his career, he served United Methodist churches in Johnson, Kansas, then Texas churches in Denison, Van Alstyne, Commerce, Wichita Falls, Coppell, and Tarrytown in Austin. Everywhere he went he built tight-knit church families, cultivated deep faith in his communities, and welcomed hard questions and doubts. He was dogged in his determination to shower love on those Matthew called “the least of these”, and sat unafraid in the darkness of people’s lives, with faith in knowing the source of everlasting light.

His testimony, however, was not confined to the pulpit. As an Elder in the United Methodist Church, he served the church and conference in innumerable and immeasurable ways. He directed a church camp for kids with disabilities (Summer Events for Exceptional Kampers or SEEK Camp), helped lead Kairos Prison Ministry teams, was part of the founding team that brought Hospice to North Texas back when it was a revolutionary concept for end of life care, was a leader in Stephen Ministries, founded bereaved parents support groups, and served in the Air Force Reserves as a chaplain and retired with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel

Everywhere he went, people knew him as “Dennis the Minis-ter”, a nickname that actually came from a little girl in the church who answered the phone when he called their house and yelled “Mom, Dennis the Menace…ter is calling!” From there, nametags, nameplates, stationary, and notecards were born bearing an image of Dennis the Menace with a mustache, robe, and clerical collar. When he reached out to the illustrator of the original comic strip, Hank Ketcham was tickled pink and even drew him a personal portrait to use however he pleased.

Humor and wit were his love language. At the farewell parties of each church, he requested that they were not melancholy affairs but rather more like comedy roasts, letting everyone tease and rib him while he took meticulous notes so he could turn around and give it right back. He was always up to some kind of hijinks, especially with his friends, and you could count on him to have the perfect quip in his back pocket. His office in every church was filled with signs of this trademark playfulness, with every The Far Side comic strip book ever published, countless books of preacher jokes, and an always-full jar of peanut M&Ms for any friend, stranger, or child who wandered in.

Though he dedicated his life to being with people in their happiest times, tender moments, and darkest nights, he could not know the depths that darkness could hold until his greatest devastation, when his eldest son, Aaron, tragically died at the young age of 26. Even through his despair, he held their family together and carried them through the lifelong journey of grief they embarked upon, the living embodiment of what became the family motto: love hard, hurt deeply, heal by grace, and press on.

The darkness of that loss was so great because the love is so great. As a father, his kids never had to question his steadfast and unconditional love and they always knew he was proud of them (even when they gave him valid reasons to feel otherwise). He was their first call in any quandary, whether a flat tire or a parenting question or an existential struggle, because he had a gentle wisdom that was unparalleled. Once when asked what his best advice was when it comes to having children, he answered “First and foremost: Love them. Love them. Love them. And always err on the side of Grace. It’s what God does for us and it’s what we’re called to do for others. And who more important to give Grace to than to your own children?”

As a husband, Dennis was as true blue as they come. He was fiercely supportive, protective, and proud of his wife, calling her “the wind beneath my wings”. He lifted Linda up as his partner in love, in life, and in his ministry, and was unfailingly romantic for every one of their 57 years together, surprising her flowers, composing poems about her, dancing her around the kitchen, and taking her on her dream trips. In every wedding he officiated, he said the same words – “These are not promises for the smooth times in your lives, nor for the healthy seasons of your hearts. Rather, these are promises for the empty periods, the difficult spaces. And they are only as good as the hearts behind them.” They had no way of knowing how these words would carry them all these years, or how deeply Linda would live them out to the end.

The past few years as he learned to live with Lewy Body Dementia, though heartbreaking and hard, have been filled in equal measure with family, friends, joy, and oh so much love. His wife, their kids, and grandchildren rallied around him, spending each day covering him in all the love they could give as they waded through the uncertain waters together. When he was first struggling to face the reality of his diagnosis, through tears he looked up at his family and said “As painful as it is to know I will be leaving you, the peace I cling to now is that I’m going to be the first to get to hug Aaron again.”

They say not to mythologize the dead, but those people must not have known Dennis. (Plus, his daughter is writing this and to her there is no one better or greater than her Daddy, so those people can keep it to themselves.) He taught us to love unconditionally and with a reckless abandon and to always err on the side of grace, not just with those closest to you, but with everyone, with strangers, and especially with those you are taught are different or other. He leaves a legacy of love, grace, wisdom, compassion, peace, and goodness. We know that his legendary light shines on in all who knew him, and no darkness can overcome it.

He is leaving earthside his beloved wife Linda, son Graham and his wife Dawnerin, daughter Sarah and her husband Barry, and his darling grandchildren Zoe, Aster, Violet, Wilkes, and Edie. He is now joining his precious son Aaron, brother Bill, mother and father, along with so many others he shepherded through their transition from this earthly life into the life thereafter. While we would give anything to have him here, Aaron taught us that he is not as far away as we think. Death can never take away what love has given.

The memorial service for Dennis Alton Wilkinson will be October 25, 2025, at 2:00pm at First United Methodist Church in Coppell, Texas. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the Dennis Wilkinson Scholarship Fund for SEEK Camp (seekcamp.org/donate/) or to the Lewy Body Dementia Association (lbda.org).