Johnie C Penton

Johnie C. Penton passed away in Oklahoma City on September 19, 2019, at the age of 84.  He lived well among friends and family, as a son, brother, husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, uncle, baseball coach and welder, with claims to have once welded an armadillo to a rock (though admittedly not witnessed).  Often, an easy going raconteur and always, a good friend.  Johnie joined the U.S. Navy in summer of 1952 after graduation from high-school, having been smitten with an urge to see the world from a navy ship.  This idea manifests following an Explorer Scouts visit aboard a Navy aircraft carrier in Pensacola, Florida, sometime during junior high school years.  While the Navy accommodated but a smidgeon of those dreams with a few tropical portages in Caribbean islands near the coast of South America, there proved what would be a fateful deployment while stationed in Norman, Oklahoma during 1953, where he would meet Joyce.  And ironically, quite remote from an ocean or Navy boat, if even a skiff.  They would marry in 1954 and upon Johnie’s Navy discharge in 1955, return to his hometown of Milton, Florida and then to Oklahoma in 1961, where he would remain, working in a family business with father-in-law Paul Watford and other members of Joyce’s family for many years.  Joyce and Johnie had two children, Johnnie and Susie, whom they raised together, alongside Joyce’s many family members and friends in her home town of Moore, Oklahoma. 

After Joyce’s death, Johnie met and in 1995, married Doris Kutch, nee Rhodes.  Johnie gained not only a wonderful wife and friend to grow old with in Doris, but also had great friendships with Doris’ children and family – Sue, Dale, Lloyd, Brenda, Charlotte, Kambria, Seth, Josh, Colton, Cole, Emily, Amanda and Nora.

Johnie was preceded in death by parents Luther Terry and Willie Mae Penton, Nee Hinote, brother Luther Penton, and wife, Joyce.  He’s survived by wife Doris; children Johnnie (Lisa) and Susie (Rodney); grandchildren Desirae Penton, Danielle Penton, Chester Jerid Penton (Erin), Jillian Penton, Brandi Ryerson (Jeremy) and Garrett Bartholomew (Ashley); great grandchildren Mylanne Miller, Dash Penton, Annistyn Ryerson, Mason Ryerson and Josie Ryerson; brother Robert Earl Penton; sisters Betty Jean Diurno, Patricia Ann Lewis and Karen Kay Davis, and numerous nieces and nephews in the extended clans of the Penton, Watford and Hinote families, located mainly in central Oklahoma and the panhandle of Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Johnie, Joyce and Doris, as well as Joyce’s extended family have generational memberships and histories with First United Methodist Church of Moore, dating back to the early 1940’s, where funeral services will be held on Friday, September 27, 2019, at 10:00 AM, CDT.

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