Harold Nixon

Harold Dean Nixon, age 89 years, passed from this life into eternal life with Jesus Christ on Sunday, April 10, 2016, with his loved ones surrounding him. A celebration of his life and legacy will be held on Friday, April 15th at 1:00 pm at First United Methodist Church, 202 Butternut. Pastor Jeff Zirkle will officiate. Burial will follow at 3:00 pm at the Texas State Veterans Cemetery at Abilene. The family will receive friends from 5:00 to 7:00 pm on Thursday, April 14th at The Hamil Family Funeral Home, 6449 Buffalo Gap Road. Harold was born in Valera, Coleman County, Texas in February 1927 to parents William Thomas Nixon and Lula Mulanax Nixon. He grew up in a Christian home with two older sisters and a younger brother and was brought up in the Methodist Church from infancy. He graduated from Centennial High School in 1944 and enlisted in the United States Navy before his 18th birthday. He received training at Great Lakes Naval Training School in Illinois and served on the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-16) in the Asiatic-Pacific War Theater in World War II. His experiences during the war forged his love and patriotism to his country for the rest of his life. After the war, he returned to Coleman County and went to work at the Kerrville Bus Station selling tickets, where he met a lovely young woman who was traveling with her mother. In September of 1947, he married that girl, Melba Elizabeth Walters, in the parsonage of the Methodist Church in Santa Anna. Soon after their marriage, they moved to Abilene so that he could attend school at Draughn’s Business College. While still in school, he was hired by R.A. Bible and worked for him at Bible Hardware, first as a bookkeeper and later as a partner for over 16 years. In 1964, he bought and moved the John Deere dealership, which was a part of Bible Hardware at the time, to south Treadaway, where it became Abilene Farm Supply, the company he owned and operated for 57 years. He and his business partner, Jay Walraven, also raised Hereford cattle in Taylor and Callahan County. He served two terms on the Abilene City Council from 1983-1989, represented Abilene in the National League of Cities and served as mayor pro tem. He also served on the board of the Taylor County Central Appraisal District, as well as the Sears Methodist Retirement board for many years. He participated in AISD’s apprenticeship and vocation training program by mentoring and training students interested in jobs in the agriculture industry. Always interested in civic activities, he participated on many committees for the West Texas Fair and Rodeo, most especially the Tractor Pull, for which he had a special interest. Harold gave many years of service to the United Methodist Church that he loved so dearly, working in several different capacities during his lifetime. He was a delegate to Annual Conference for many years, a lay speaker for the church, Sunday School teacher, and represented the Methodist Church on the national level as a delegate to General Conference for 16 years, diligently fighting to uphold Biblical principles and truth in the midst of vast social changes in the church. He chaired the annual Tent Revival at First United Methodist Church and served in many of the local congregation’s positions at various times. In addition to this, he was a Gideon and loved donating his time and service to speaking in churches across the state and country to place the word of God into the hands of as many people as possible. He loved his family deeply, cherished being involved in the lives of his children and grandchildren, and whether it was a family outing at the farm or a skiing trip to the mountains of New Mexico, family meant everything to him. He never missed an opportunity to witness his deep faith to his family in his quiet and gentle spirit. He and Melba were blessed to have the opportunity to travel to many places across the country and around the world, but considered their trip to the Holy Land and baptism in the Jordan River as the best of all. He was preceded in death by his parents, his two sisters, Janice Dickson and Imogene Gerth and his brother, Dewayne. Harold is survived by his beloved wife of nearly 69 years, Melba, his daughter, Becky and husband Jim Creel; son, Steve Nixon and wife Kara, son, Paul Nixon and girlfriend Tamara Kowalski; sister-in-law, Tommie Nixon; his grandchildren, Hayley and husband Justin Six, Blair and husband David Smith, Michael and wife Micalea Nixon, and Christopher Nixon; and five great-grandchildren, Harper, Hayden, Kelton, Carson and Luke. Serving as pallbearers will be his grandsons and grandsons-in-law. In lieu of flowers, his family requests memorial donations to the First United Methodist Church, Gideon’s International, 202 Butternut, Abilene, TX 79602; or the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (JDRF) 9400 N Central Expressway; Ste. 1201, Dallas, TX 75231. His family will be eternally grateful for the love, care and compassion he received from his caregivers at Home Instead, the nurses and aides at Wesley Court, and the Hendrick Hospice Staff. “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love God in Christ Jesus our Lord!”