Ronnie Bruce Watkins

He is survived by son Johnny Watkins; parents Perry and Wanda Watkins; brother Terry Watkins; sister Deanna Watkins; grandchildren Haylie McGuire, Michael Watkins, Jayden White.

Memorial service 2pm, Saturday, December 11, 2010 at DeVorss Flanagan-Hunt Chapel.

Ronnie worked 30+ years for Cargill, on a grueling schedule that few people would be able to tolerate......yet he rarely ever complained about it. Each month he would change to a different shift, for example... one month of being on 1st shift, the following month being on 2nd shift, the following month being on 3rd shift, and the 4th month was the dreaded "D" shift which was a combination of all 3 shifts, each a week at a time. Then it would revert back to 1st shift and the cycle would start all over again. He made many friends at work and was genuinely interested in their day to day lives. He had a lot of fun with his closest co-workers because he would come home still laughing about something they had talked about or did. He never had anything bad to say about anyone at work.

Ronnie was fortunate to receive generous vacation time off from Cargill and always looked forward to the next trip. On vacations, he particularly enjoyed finding a new antique mall, dining at anything different than what we have here in Wichita, relaxing on a beach with a mango margarita (or 2 or 3), seeing the local sites and observing how people live in other parts of the world. He loved scouring the local shops and always brought home treasures for himself and others, often hauling things home on airplanes that would be a nightmare for security in this day and age. Another favorite thing to do on vacation was to attend concerts by major recording artists and he would often plan a vacation around such an event. One such event was Streisand’s Millennium New Years Eve concert in Las Vegas as 1999 turned into the year 2000. That concert was filmed and released on DVD, so Ronnie is somewhere in the audience on thousands of those DVD's. Other concerts he enjoyed on vacations were, Tina Turner, Elton John, Liza Minnelli, Whitney Houston, Madonna, and Bette Midler, just to name a few. And of course he always insisted on going to Broadway shows whenever he visited New York City, even if it meant standing in line for 3 hours at the half price ticket booth in Times Square with 10,000 other people.

He loved to travel, whether it was a cruise, a flight or simply a drive to Oklahoma with his Mom. Some of his favorite places were San Diego, San Francisco, New York City, Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal Canada, Warm beach resorts of Mexico, and always liked to go anywhere in Florida. Another one of his favorite places to go was his home away from home in NW Arkansas to visit his Brother, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Nieces, and Nephews whenever he could work it in.

Ronnie had many great qualities about him...kind, considerate, loving, thoughtful, and truthful. He could also be just a tiny bit stubborn at times....but most of all, Ron was a people person. He knew few strangers and made new friends easily. He could make a new friend just by going up to them and saying "hi". He would always greet his friends with a smile and a "how are you", and quite often a hug. However, nobody was more important to him than Family. During his later years he would go several times a week to his parent’s house, helping to cook dinners and gather with his son, grandchildren and great nieces and nephews, and anyone else that wanted to come eat. He cherished his grandkids, loved being a grandfather... and did his best to spoil those grandkids. He always tried to make sure they had everything they needed. He loved his garden. Johnny said he made sure his house was surrounded by flowers. I was also told he kept his house very clean.

When he learned of his fate recently, it was his top priority wish to go visit his relatives in Arkansas for some quality time. Although he wasn't well, he actually got to make the trip twice, and instigated a big dinner gathering for his Arkansas family in case he didn't make it to Thanksgiving. Well he did make it to Thanksgiving, raved about the food, and enjoyed the comfort of his entire Wichita family. Ronnie will be missed by all he touched.