Omar H. Burkett

The Abilene Reporter-News, July 3, 1964, page 10-B

Omar Burkett's Rites Saturday

EASTLAND -- Funeral for Omar H. Burkett, 81, who died at 4 p.m. Thursday in Eastland Memorial Hospital will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at Hamner Funeral Chapel.

Larry Marshall, Church of Christ minister, will officiate with burial at Eastland Cemetery.

An Eastland County resident for 50 years, he had been ill for about six months.

He had been in a Temple hospital for surgery and was brought back to Eastland several days ago.

Mr. Burkett was born Sept. 24, 1882, in Lampasas, and married Katherine Pulley in 1906 in Cisco.  She died Dec. 18, 1961.

He was a former Callahan County Commissioner and had taught school at Dothan and Putnam.  He was a member of the Masonic Lodge at Putnam and a member of the Scottish Rite Consistory and Hella Shrine Temple in Dallas.

He served four terms as representative in the state legislature for Eastland, Callahan and Shakelford counties and had served as chief of police in Eastland and for 15 years as Railroad Commission chief supervisor for this district.

Later, he was employed for several years in the State Comptrollers office as an auditor, retireing from active state service in 1961.

Survivors include two sons, Harold of Hawley and Bob of Cisco; two daughters, Mrs. C. O. Goins of Topeka, Kan., and Mrs. Carol Nichols of Corpus Christi, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Pallbearers will be Eastland County Judge Scott Bailey, Porter Woods and Mike Collins of Eastland, I. G. Mobley of Putnam, and Billy and Smitty Huestes, both of Cisco.