Vernon Ray Claxton

Vernon, or also referred to as Vern, was born in Mount Pleasant, Arkansas, a rural area in the north central Arkansas Ozarks to Teddy “Von” and Willie Claxton on June 6,1938. During his childhood he worked on their family farm, fishing, went to school, and church and just enjoyed being outside. He went Mount Pleasant School and graduated as valedictorian in 1956. During his time at Mount Pleasant School, he enjoyed academics and played basketball on a fairly successful team and although he was not too tall in stature, he developed a pretty hard to guard left-handed bank shot.

At Mount Pleasant school, he met the love of his life, Ruby Jean (Jean) Jones. They dated throughout high school and married on March 30, 1957. They celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary. Vern and Jean’s love for each other was always felt and present.

After high school, Vern had a choice to go to college or go to work. He chose to go to work and start a life and family. In 1957, due to the lack of work in the Mount Pleasant area, one of his high school classmates persuaded him to move to Wichita and work at Beechcraft since the aircraft manufacturing industry was “booming”. After working in Wichita for several months, he returned to Mount Pleasant and married Jean at a small church wedding at the Barren Forks Presbyterian Church. On the night of their wedding, they returned to Wichita to start their new life and family together.

In 1959, Vern and Jean had their first child and daughter, Sandra. Their second child Marshall was born in1962. Throughout their kids’ lives, Vern was great example of what a dad should be, bringing them up by showing them the worth of hard work and education and moral upbringing, spending a lot of time going to church, with our friends at First Southern Baptist who have become an extended part of our family to this day.

Not liking working shiftwork and nights, Vern decided to pursue new working opportunities and started work at Kansas Gas and Electric (KG&E), which became Western Resources and is currently known as the power utility Evergy. He started his work career at KG&E as a lab technician and worked his way up to a Senior Controls Technician, working at several of the electrical generating plants in the Wichita area and at other parts of Kansas during maintenance activities. He worked for KG&E through Western Resources for over 41 years and retired in 2001.

After retirement, Vern got involved with several volunteer efforts including pickup and delivery of blood throughout the Wichita and surrounding area for the American Red Cross, and enjoyed hobbies (gardening and wood working), and yardwork. His yardwork efforts developed into a side job for him, primarily working for what he referred to as “older folks that needed some help”. As one of his neighbors attested to, “in the summer Vern would be out in his yard working and mowing up to two to three times at week to make it look good‘‘.

He always loved going to church and being part of a church family as a Deacon was one of his priorities in life.

In addition to hobbies, he also loved spending time and visiting with his children and granddaughters, Courtney and Haley. He and Jean supported them and attended many of their school through college events and church events over the years and were always excited to see and do new things with them.

Vern was preceded in death by his parents Von and Willie Claxton and sister Vonita Claxton Steward. Vern leaves his loving wife Jean, daughter Sandra Welty, son Marshall (Denise) Claxton, and grandchildren Haley Claxton, and Courtney (Lee) Johnson. He will be missed by all.

In lieu of flowers the family request memorial donations to Country Acres Baptist Church of Wichita or American Diabetes Association.

Service will be streamed live from Country Acres Baptist Church.

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