Mack Wayne Hampton
December 28, 1933 – July 9, 2022
Funeral Service and Video Tribute
Graveside Music
Pallbearers’ Tribute
Life Display
Eulogy
Given by Jeff Hampton, July 14, 2022, Richardson, Texas
In the few minutes I have this morning I want to try to paint a picture of the man whose life is described in dates and places in your program. Words are insufficient, of course, but that’s all I have.
As a Father,
Dad was an equal opportunity encourager and enabler. He endured my band concerts and RW’s rodeos. He bought RW a horse and me a 10-speed bike. He gave RW a pickup truck and me a two-door sedan. He let us be ourselves — a cowboy and a city slicker – and he was proud of us both.
Dad didn’t go on our Scout campouts but he did the dirty work of picking up a carload of stinking boys after a week at summer camp and driving us home with the windows down. He helped us carve race cars for pinewood derbies and cheered us both to the finish line of our Eagle Scout projects. When RW decided to make Philmont Scout Ranch his home for the summer and beyond, Dad drove him out there and turned him loose into the wild. He did the same for me when I went to Baylor.
We learned a lot about what made him tick when he demonstrated the attention to detail required to build model airplanes, and the steady hands and sharp eyes needed to shoot a tin can off a fence post with a 22 rifle. Some kids admired the superheroes of the day, but our hero always was our Dad.
Dad was a Patriot
He served three years in the Air Force and it clearly was a highlight of his life. On pleasant nights when we were young we’d lay on a quilt and he’d point out the constellations he’d learned as a navigator. And often he told stories of scrambling to the airfield and jetting up into the sky on drills to protect our northern border from a Soviet attack. And then he’d say, “Back then we only had one enemy.”
Dad was shaken on that November day in 1963 when he watched President Kennedy’s motorcade drive by and then learned the dreadful news of the assassination when he stepped back out from lunch.
He prayed for his country then and throughout his life and especially in recent years.
Dad was a Man of Abiding Faith
He was raised in the church, and here at First Baptist he served in many significant ways. But what always stands out to me was his work on the pastor search committee that brought James Landes to Richardson. That became personally important to our family because Dr. Landes baptized both of us boys and pastored us when we lost our sister Martha way too early. Dad grieved mightily but never lost his faith, and he shared his journey through those rugged days with the writing of his book, “Once There Were Three.”
Dad loved great preaching, great hymns and great soloists. Long before we got to church on Sunday mornings, he had already primed his spiritual pump with Norvell Slater’s “Hymns we Love” radio program and W.A. Criswell from downtown Dallas.
When the Billy Graham crusade came to Texas Stadium in the 1970s, we were there every night, and I know Dad was there for George Beverly Shea as much as he was for Graham.
Dad was a voracious reader, as evidenced by his personal library with several thousand volumes from the leading names in Christian commentary, history and devotion. He was never finished learning about his God and his faith.
While COVID and his own unsteadiness ended his trips to Sunday worship, Dad was a faithful attender online and on TV — both here and elsewhere.
Dad was a Loving Husband
He was too shy to teach us about the birds and the bees and he never gave any dating advice that I recall, but he showed us how to be a good man and a good husband by the way he treated Mom. He supported her whole heartedly when she went back to school and as she advanced in her career in the Richardson school district. He cheered her leadership here at church, especially when she was ordained as a deacon. They were true partners in life and in faith.
Dad was openly affectionate. He called Mom “Annskie,” and we kids couldn’t help but notice their playful talk and how they enjoyed holding hands. Sometimes when we were in the car with them, it was like they were on a date and they’d forgotten we were in the back seat.
As a Business Man,
Dad had meaningful jobs but not high-profile titles. A generation of dentists went through his office at Baylor College of Dentistry to get the funds they needed for their education. Some years back when I told my periodontist about Dad, he disappeared for a moment and came back with his yearbook opened to a picture of Dad sitting at his desk.
Dad didn’t live to work; he worked to live. Long after he retired, he’d look at his growing family and say, “YOU are my legacy.”
Dad lived within his means and was content with having just what was needed. He was a sensible Chevy man most of his life, except for giving Buick a try for a few years after we were grown and gone. And he bought a green Ford Pinto when his teenage sons created the need for two cars. His last car was a bright red Chevy Cruze, which had just enough flash and dash for a man in his eighties.
Dad Was His Own Man
He was sly with a joke or a comment and loved to drag us all into what some call boy humor – the kind that makes mothers and wives cringe. He was buttoned down most of the time, but occasionally he would slip. Like the time on a family vacation when he jumped into a motel shower that had turned ice cold and he burned our young ears with a word we’d never heard before.
Dad was a man of discipline and routines, such as getting up at 4:30 every day to walk four miles and read the paper, mowing the lawn himself each week, and later in life, ordering the same lunch daily at the String Bean. His early-bird habit made him the perfect driver for our morning paper routes. His reward was spending time with his sons and reading the newspaper before anyone else in town.
Dad loved the great American song book and the popular crooners of his day like Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney. When he heard Elvis for the first time on the jukebox at Baylor, he was not impressed. His ears and his heart were tuned to sentimental ballads. He wasn’t too shabby himself, whether singing a favorite hymn, an old tune from the radio, or “That Good Old Baylor Line.”
I could go on and on and never paint a complete portrait. So, I’ll finish with this:
From the beginning to the end, Dad gave us his unconditional love and his unwavering faith, and he taught us that the two go hand in hand.
Obituary
Mack Wayne Hampton
December 28, 1933 – July 9, 2022
Mack was the second child born to Elvey and Martha Hampton and was raised in Sherman, Texas, except for a brief period in junior high when the family moved to Mineral Wells and Odessa where his father was a newspaper advertising manager. As a boy in Sherman, he had a paper route, and in high school he worked at a men’s clothing store on the downtown square. He graduated from Sherman High School where he was a yell leader for the Bearcats.
Mack followed in his father’s footsteps to Baylor University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He joined the Air Force ROTC as a junior and was commissioned as a second lieutenant at his graduation by President Dwight Eisenhower. During his senior year, he met Rebecca Ann McKenzie of Orange, Texas, at First Baptist Church in Waco. The couple married in June 1956 just a few weeks after his graduation.
Mack served in the U.S. Air Force as a radar observer in a Northrop F-89J Scorpion, an early interceptor jet of the Cold War era. His service took him to Houston, San Antonio, Waco and finally to Great Falls, Montana. During these years, the couple had two sons: Dick (R.W.) born in Houston, and Jeff born in Great Falls.
Mack was honorably discharged from the Air Force in 1959 and the family moved back to Texas. They lived in Sherman briefly and moved to Richardson in 1961 when he took a job as a purchasing agent for Anderson, Clayton Foods in Dallas. As they did everywhere they lived, the couple immediately joined First Baptist Church of Richardson. In 1962 they had their third child, Martha Ann, who died in 1971 after a traffic accident. Mack left Anderson, Clayton not long after that and went to Baylor College of Dentistry where he was the student financial aid officer for 19 years.
Mack was a member of First Baptist for 62 years. He served as a deacon, an adult Sunday school teacher and on various committees including finance and two pastor search committees. He was a dedicated hospital visitor, and on Wednesday nights he was often called upon to pray for those in need.
When he took early retirement from Baylor, Mack worked part time at Dad & Lad’s clothing store until it closed, and he volunteered in patient transportation at Baylor Hospital. He was a volunteer tram driver at the Dallas Arboretum for 15 years and did that well into his 80s.
Mack was preceded in death by his parents, his brother who died when he was three, and his daughter. He is survived by Ann, his wife of 66 years; two sons and their wives, R.W and Lisa Hampton, and Jeff and LeAnn Hampton; six grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
Memorial donations may be made in the name of Mack Hampton to The Great Commission Fund or The Children’s Playground Fund at First Baptist Richardson. Please text HAMPTON to 972-235-5296.