Lloyd Hurst

Lloyd B. Smokey Hurst died on Saturday, January 17, 2004 at the VA Hospital, Kerrville, TX.On August 6, 1930, Smokey, the youngest of six living children, was born to Mansol and Margaret Hurst, who, in true Grapes of Wrath style, migrated to Kerrville from Tennessee in 1929.Smokey wore many hats in his life and was a near master at several of them. After his first major job as lifeguard at the municipal swimming pool on Water Street, he served in the U.S. Air Force for three years 19471950, two years of which were spent at Fukuoka and Noma saki, Kyushu, Japan where he learned Japanese fluently enough to be the base translator. He was part of the Air Force wrestling and karate jujitsu team. Smokey was at various times a cabinet maker, carpenter, tile setter and one time owner of a ceramic tile company, and an operating room technician at the VA hospital. His major accomplishment, however, was as a superb artista sculptor, painter and creator of Dillafunn, a series about an anthropomorphized armadillo who was silkscreened onto tens of thousands of tshirts. He also designed the Tivy Antlers mascot.Smokey is preceded in death by his parents, Mansol and Margaret Hurst, his brothers Alton, Albert and Donald and his sister, Ellarie Williams Smokey is survived by his older brother, Sherrill, and his Britishborn, Kenya raised, wife, Diana Mary Hurst, whom he met in Bandera where Diana was employed at the Dixie Dude Ranch, and he was playing the guitar in the band at the Cabaret night club. They were married at the Oak Park Baptist Church in 1962 and then moved to Colorado Springs where he owned a oneman tile company. He also worked as an estimator at Fort Carson and for a construction company in Thailand before returning to Kerrville.Smokey is also survived by two daughters, Faith Susan Neely of San Marcos, and Alexandra Goyer Hurst of San Antonio, two grandchildren, Anastasia Calista Fausnacht born in Tokyo and Alexander Nicholas Rasche born in Germany, and two children, Bill and Theresa from a former marriage, and nieces and nephews and their children too numerous to mention here.Smokey was known in Kerrville by people from all walks of life and, possibly, by everyone else as the old man zooming about town on a green scooter, white hair flying in the wind. He will be sorely missed by us all.In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the building fund of the First Baptist Church, Ingram, Texas.

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