Obituaries: Bob Norris, John Lacy

Bob Norris, 82, Nov. 21 in McKinney. He felt a call to ministry as a teenager while attending First Baptist Church in Slaton. After graduating from Hardin-Simmons University, he left for U.S. Army boot camp before spending 11 months in Korea, serving in the U.S. Army Security Agency. Bob NorrisAfter leaving the Army, he began a career in banking, and he also served First Baptist Church in Snyder as youth director. In 1963, he moved to Fort Worth to attend Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. During his seminary training, he was pastor of small churches in Texas and Oklahoma. After graduation, he worked in the food-service industry in Lubbock and El Paso, but he always was an active leader in his church. In 1986, he and his wife, Nelda, began the Hospitality House in Huntsville, a ministry to the families of prison inmates. He was chaplain to the families of inmates on Death Row during a period that spanned 230 executions. They retired from the ministry in 2003 and moved to McKinney, where they joined First Baptist Church. He is survived by his wife of 58 years; sons, Richard and Randy; daughters, Raelene Norris and Renee Aguilar; six grandchildren; and one great-grandson. 

John Lacy, 70, Nov. 22 in San Angelo. He served in the U.S. Navy 22 years. John LacyAfter retiring, he was pastor of Christian Fellowship Baptist Church in San Angelo 10 years, and he remained pastor there at the time of his death. He was a former president of the San Angelo chapter of the NAACP as well as the San Angelo Ministerial Alliance. He was preceded in death by his brother, Claude Jr., and sister, Jimmie Ruth Lacy. He is survived by his daughters, Montoya Ward-Mitchell and Johnetta Banks; sisters, Bonnie Willis, Billie Jean Lacy and Shirley Jean Ray; brother, Bobby Dean; seven grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.