David Lee Graney's Obituary
David Lee Graney of Fayetteville passed away July 4, 2023, at his home under the care of Washington Regional Hospice and his daughters after a brief illness. He was 84.
He was born Oct. 15, 1938, in Lincoln, Ill., the only child of John David Graney and Ella Lee (McMonagle) Graney. He played football and baseball at Lincoln High School, graduating in 1956, and went to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale on a baseball scholarship. The Kansas City Athletics had shown interest in the left-handed pitcher, but they wanted his game to mature by playing college ball. However, Dave threw his arm out before his first college season and was never listed on the SIU rosters.
Undeterred, he happily continued in his second love of the outdoors and chose to finish his Bachelor of Science in Forestry, graduating in 1961, and went on to Virginia Polytechnic Institute for a Master of Science and later a Ph.D., both also in forestry.
In 1965, Dave married Lois C. Ahrens, whom he met through her cousin, who was dating his best friend. They had two children, Dawn Denise and Pamela Suzanne, and lived in Harrison, Ark., then Blacksburg, Va., where he completed his Ph.D., before moving to Fayetteville in 1972.
He served in the U.S. Army Reserves from 1964 to 1970 and worked as a research soil specialist for the U.S. Forest Service his entire career, retiring in 1998.
Dave was a small-game hunter, a fisherman, a maker of fishing lures and a hunter of morel mushrooms and black walnuts. Seasons in the Graney household were not spring, summer, fall and winter but mushroom season, squirrel season, rabbit season, quail season, dove season and fishing-whenever-the-water-wasn't-frozen season. Vacations were returning home to Illinois to visit family and camp and fish on the “crick,” then traveling to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to join his fishing buddy for walleye fishing.
Dave walked daily until he was 82, finding more than $20,000 in change for his grandchildren's college fund on his walks. He devotedly mowed and hand-weeded his lawn until this spring and, after his wife's death, could most often be found in his recliner, reading and watching movies, always interested in comparing the two.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Lois, on March 27, 2017. He is survived by his daughters, Dawn Rollins of Fayetteville and Pamela Graney of Bella Vista; grandchildren Justin Rollins and Erika Rollins of Fayetteville; and friends and family members in Illinois and Northwest Arkansas.
A memorial visitation is planned from 2 to 4 p.m. July 19 at Nelson-Berna Funeral Home in Fayetteville. Memorials may be made to the Forest Service Plant-A-Tree Program. Condolences may be offered online at www.bernafuneralhomes.com.
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