© Enid News & Eagle
Enid, OK 73701
May 18, 2003
(permission granted)

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Ray Bentley

Funeral services for Ray Bentley, 84, Enid, will be at 11 a.m. Tues. at First Baptist Church, Lawton, with Dr.Gary Cook officiating. Mr. Bentley died Friday, May 16, 2003, at Methodist Home in Enid. Burial will be at 3p.m.in Chattanooga Cemetery under direction of Becker Funeral Home. He was born July 30, 1918, in Thornberry, Tx, to Charles and Emma Bentley. He grew up in Chattanooga and graduated from Chattanooga High School in 1936. He was a member of the Chattanooga basketball, track and tennis teams. He attended Hill's Business College in Oklahoma City for two years. He married Venita Peters on June 21, 1941, in Chickasha. They lived in Lawton until 1998 when they moved to Enid. In 1940 he was employed by Nash-Finch Wholesale Grocery Company in Lawton as warehouse foreman and later as a salesman until March 1944 when he was inducted in the U.S. Army. He served during World War II in the European theatre until April 1946. He achieved the rank of staff sergeant. Following the war he returned to Nash-Finch Company as a salesman until 1957 when the company closed the Lawton branch office. He then worked for Wertz Fruit Company in Lawton as a salesman throughout south central and Southwestern Oklahoma from 1957 until 1974 when he began his employment with Ben E. Keith Company as a salesman in Lawton and Fort Sill until he retired in 1984. He was a member of First Baptist Church in Lawton. Survivors include his wife, of the home; a daughter, Nikki Baker and husband, Paul, Enid; two grandchildren: Stacy Rae Cumpton and husband, Jason, and Jeffrey Paul Baker and wife Katy of Edmond; and a great grandson, Logan Paul Baker.