John Oliver Kling

There will be no visitation. A celebration of his life will be held at Johnson’s Funeral Home, San Angelo, Texas on Monday, April 17, 2017 at 10:00 AM.

John was born to Emil A. Kling and Olive Kling on June 9, 1919 in Almont, North Dakota. He was married to Dahlia Faye Hensley on June 4, 1944. He is survived by his three sons, Nathan Dale Kling and wife Naila, Dwight Douglas Kling and wife Claudia, John Dwaine Kling. He was grandfather to Tanya Kling Fulton, Brian Kling, Maryam Kling Taylor,and great-grandfather to Tabitha, Travis, Brittany, and Braden Fulton; Samantha and Adam Kling; He was preceded in death by his wife, his parents and his brother Llewellyn and sister Roween. John lived an exciting, well-traveled life. During World War II he was a navigator/ bombardier flying off Guadalcanal attacking Japanese shipping. Following the war, he took his undergraduate and master’s degrees at LSU in Agricultural Economics. He then purchased and operated a farm near Paint Rock, Texas. The major drought of the fifties led him to New Mexico State university where he was an Extension Economist. While there he was taped by the US State department to become a USAID agricultural advisor. During his career as a U.S. Department of State Foreign Service officer he advised top government officials in Santiago, Chile; San Jose, Costa Rica; Saigon, Vietnam; Seoul, Korea and finally in Washington DC where he was the liaison officer between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Sec. of agriculture Earl Butz. He retired to the farm he had continued to own near Paint Rock, Texas. He will be greatly missed by all who knew and loved him.