Faytie Ray Shilling

Ray Shilling was born the son of a sharecropper in Arkansas on January 28, 1929. He went home to be with the Lord Jesus early on October 15, 2019 at the age of 90. He grew up in Arkansas, graduated from high school in 3 years (as valedictorian) in order to enlist in the US Navy where he served proudly in the Seabees. There he learned a trade that he used the rest of his life.

After his discharge from the Navy, Ray came to Fresno where he married Myrtle Ward and began building their family home on property at Cedar and Alluvial where they raised their family across the pasture from her parents. Ray was married to Myrtle for 67 years when she died in 2017. He was devoted to her and their four children: Patricia Hinkle (and husband Mark), Pamela Smith (and husband Mark), sons Duane, and Randy (and wife Dana). Together Ray and Myrtle PROUDLY attended every athletic event and school program their 11 grandchildren participated in. At last count, he was proud to have 16 great-grandchildren. Ray’s greatest pride was in his family, and we will miss him until we are together again.

Ray loved the Lord and had a servant’s heart serving as a deacon in the Baptist Church for many years, most recently at Lifeway Baptist Church in Fresno. He served in any way he could at his church, wherever needed, whether teaching Bible classes, singing in the choir, leading Wednesday night services, driving others to church or mowing the lawns. He also served as a volunteer answering the help phone line for LOVE, Inc. of Fresno.

Ray worked 20 years in the sheet metal trade before being elected as Business Agent for the Sheet Metal Workers Local #252. He treated all 200-250 members like family. He represented his members with honesty and integrity, negotiating and putting into place many of the benefits still in place today. After his service as Business Manager for Local #252, he became the Executive Director of the AFL-CIO Central Labor Council. During that time he was also the director of COPE – the Committee on Political Education – and he could be heard as the labor commentator regularly on KVPR radio with broadcasts regarding labor issues and encouraging the working class to know the issues and their rights, and to get out to vote.

In 1988, he revived the “Valley Labor Citizen” newspaper and used that format to inform and encourage union workers in the Central San Joaquin Valley with his monthly Executive Report. While Ray was Acting Secretary of the Tulare-Kings Labor Council and elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Central Labor Council of Fresno-Madera he provided leadership to the Private Industry Council Board of Directors, serving as a delegate to conventions of the AFL-CIO, both State and National.

He worked to resolve conflicts, bring contracts to a successful conclusion, resolve grievances, promote goodwill and improve working conditions for all. He served on the Citizen’s Advisory Committee for the City of Fresno and on the committee to bring a University of California campus to Fresno County.

Ray had a long and successful career as a union leader committed to improving conditions for all working men and women. Throughout the 80’s he was a familiar face on the local news, often in a hard hat walking picket lines whether with striking air controllers in 1983 or at grocery store fronts or with Cesar Chavez and the farm workers. He retired in 1991 and was commended for his outstanding union and civic leadership in a formal California Legislature Assembly Resolution.

A Celebration of Life for Ray will be held Friday, October 25, 2019 from 11:00 a.m. at Lifeway Baptist Church, 4250 West Bullard Avenue, Fresno, California 93722.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.boicefuneralhome.com for the Shilling family.