Billy Leist

The funeral for Billy Ray Leist of Essex, Mo., will be held at 1:30 p.m. Friday at Ford and Sons Sprigg Street Funeral Home. Bishop Tom Morris will officiate. Burial will be in Lorimier Cemetery.

Friends may call at the funeral home Friday from noon until time of service.

Leist, 40, died Saturday, Jan. 4, 2003, at Missouri Southern Healthcare in Dexter, Mo.

He was born Feb. 17, 1962, in Cape Girardeau, son of Benjamin Franklin and Betty Wills Leist. He and Pearl Arelene Probst were married Aug. 27, 1982, in Cape Girardeau. She died Jan. 13, 1994.

Leist was a member of the former Pearl Street Church.

Survivors include a son, Fred Leist of Sikeston, Mo.; his mother of Cape Girardeau; and a brother, Donald Leist of Sikeston.

He was preceded in death by his father.