RAYMOND CREWS

SIKESTON -- Funeral for George Raymond Crews of Sikeston will be held at 10 a.m. today at Ponder Funeral Home. Dr. Jim Davis will officiate. Burial will be in Piggott City Cemetery in Piggott, Ark.

Crews, 86, died Sunday, March 28, 1999, at Missouri Delta Medical Center.

He was born July 28, 1912, in Rector, Ark., son of George Riley and Emma Pearl Hill Crews. He and Mary Lucille Thomas were married Sept. 28, 1933.

Crews was the circuit embalmer for the Irby Funeral Homes in Piggott, Corning and Rector, Ark., and in Holcomb from 1931-41. He moved to Sikeston in 1941 and joined the staff of Welsh Funeral Home. He later purchased that funeral home and renamed it Crews-Welsh Funeral Home Inc. After he retired in 1982 the business was purchased by Ponder Funeral Home.

He was a member of First United Methodist Church, lifetime member of the Masonic Lodge and National Funeral Directors Association, past president of Southeast Missouri Funeral Directors Association, and past president of Sikeston Lions Club.

Survivors include his wife; two sons, George Crews of Memphis, Tenn., Gene Crews of Perth, Western Australia; two daughters, Mona Foster of Puxico, Mary Kane of Sarasota, Fla.; 11 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by two brothers and a sister.