Donald G Barker

Don Barker was born in Waco Texas on January 9th, 1929. He was the youngest child of Dell and Clyde Barker of Llano Texas. He enlisted in the Army at a young age in order to qualify for the GI Bill. That seemed the fast track to getting a university education in those days. In the army he worked in the brand new field of radar. He taught calculating estimated locations for aircraft and did voiceovers for varied training films.

When he left the army in 1949, he returned to Waco where he attended Baylor University for undergraduate and his Master's degree. He married another Baylor graduate, elementary teacher Jimmie Ann Jahn, on March 7th 1953. They had attended the same high school, but first got to know each other after being assigned as laboratory partners in a required physics class at Baylor. (How romantic can you get?) At the time, Jimmie Ann worked as a costume designer for the Baylor Theater and Don worked nights answering the phone at Wilkerson and Hatch mortuary. Their oldest daughter, Laura, was born while they lived in Waco.

Don then worked as a vocational counselor and as a rehabilitation counselor for the Texas State Commission for the Blind before completing his higher education at University of Texas in Austin. His youngest daughter, Rebecca Thomas, was born in Austin before the family moved to College Station where he began teaching statistics and educational psychology.

Dr. Barker quickly became a favorite professor at Texas A&M University for the rest of his working career. He was an active member of Phi Beta Kappa and retired as Professor Emeritus after 30 plus years. Every day at lunch he played badminton or racquetball. After retiring, he continued working out at G Rollie White and later at the Rec Center. An enthusiastic cyclist, he rode close to 100 miles on his bike each week, until Jimmie Ann's declining health required him to become her full-time caregiver until she passed away on October 5th, 2005.

He began volunteering to help patients at Sherwood nursing home get to church services in their wheelchairs and eventually became song leader for the group. His friend Clyde Wilton also got him to volunteer at the Brazos County Jail. He was a wonderful public speaker and often spoke or sang at funerals of people he'd outlived. He loved to joke that at his age (96) you read the obituaries first to see if you are there yet. He will be greatly missed by those who loved him and those he loved.

A funeral service for Dr. Donald Gene Barker will be held Thursday, March 27, 2025 at 2:30 PM at Memorial Funeral Chapel College Station.