A. VERNON PRESSON SR.

CHARLESTON -- Funeral service for A. Vernon Presson Sr. of Charleston will be held at 1 p.m. Friday at McMikle Funeral Home. The Revs. Gerald Collier and Charles Kohlbaker will officiate, with burial in IOOF Cemetery.

Friends may call at the funeral home from 5-8 p.m. today.

Presson, 73, died Tuesday, July 25, 1995, at his home.

He was born Nov. 20, 1921, in the Dogwood community, son of Samuel Ira and Bertha Mae Ponder Presson. He and Mary Minner were married Nov. 24, 1946.

Presson retired from McDonnell Douglas Aircraft in St. Louis in 1974. He moved to Charleston in 1976 where he co-owned and operated Bootheel Cafe from 1977-84. He was a member of First Baptist Church here.

Survivors include his wife; three sons, Don Presson of Cape Girardeau, Arthur Presson Jr. of Brooklyn, N.Y., Earl Presson of St. Louis; two daughters, Sharon Whelan of Watertown, Wis., Judith Schaedler of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; two brothers, Nathan Presson of Pine Grove, Calif., Aubrey Presson of Decatur, Ala.; a sister, Marie King of Battle Creek, Mich.; four grandchildren; two stepbrothers, Gene and Bill Ponder of East Prairie, and a stepsister, Margaret Martin of Mt. Vernon, Ill.

He was preceded in death by a son.