The Rev. John Dale Walker (‘83) died November 21, 2021. He was born on April 6, 1954 to Harold Ellsworth Walker II & Audrey Holly Reed Walker on a Navy base in Balboa, Panama. 

Since he grew up in a military family, he had all kinds of adventures in his early life. The fun stories of his childhood were so outlandish, we never really knew if he was embellishing or not.  We will have to ask his sister, Leann Walker GIbberson, if we want to really know the truth.

John married his wife Nancy on October 5, 1996. They celebrated 25 wonderful years of loving marriage this past October. As a blended family they had 3 children: daughter Rachel and husband Dirk Chapman; son David and wife Traci Nowell; son Jeremy and wife Charisa Nowell; and seven grandchildren: Grant, Barrett, Katie, Luke, Emily, Asher, and Logan.

He worked in many different fields: IT network administrator, Episcopal priest, business school administrator/teacher, and line chef, just to name a few. But no title was better than Papa.

He will be greatly missed, but there will be an amazing reunion once our assignment down here is done.  We love you Papa.  We will do our best to show others the love of God like you did every day. Thank you for being such a great example for us to follow. “He’s one of the best people that I have ever met.” We have heard that from so many people when we tell them that John Walker (Papa) passed away. He lived to show people the love of God and he did a great job of it.  Well done to His good and faithful servant.

He was preceded in death by his parents Harold Ellsworth Walker II, Audrey Holly Reed Walker, and his granddaughter Kathryn (Katie) Sue Nowell.

Memorial service details are pending at this time. He will be buried at Llano Cemetery in Amarillo.

The preceding obituary was first posted at Legacy.com at this link.