William Hargis

William Lawton Hargis, 96, of 2024 Griffith Place East, died Wednesday, July 14, 2004, at his home. He was born in Pulaski County, Kentucky, the eldest of five children born to Etta and James Hargis.

Mr. Hargis received his early education in Somerset, Kentucky. He later studied at the University of Akron and the University of Louisville, where his special interests were journalism and business English.

After working briefly in private industry, he entered federal government service in 1935 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, D.C. He joined the staff of the Social Security Administration in 1936 and was on duty in Washington; in Louisville and Ashland, Kentucky; and in Nelsonville, Youngstown, and Canton, Ohio. In 1949 he became manager of the Owensboro office of the Social Security Administration, where he worked until his retirement as regional manager in 1970. In all his positions within the agency, he did a good deal of public speaking. In Owensboro he was active in the Rotary Club and in support of the American Red Cross.

Mr. Hargis was a veteran of World War II, serving overseas with the army medical corps. From September 1944 to spring 1946, he worked as a clerk-typist in the General Headquarters, European Theater of Operations, Paris, France. His duties consisted of transcribing, unscrambling, and typing for distribution top-secret military information received by radio or cable from the U.S.A. and from all theaters of operations as well as from the front lines.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 60 years, Pauline Back Hargis. In 1997 he married Ava Westerfield. She, her daughter Sandra Barbour, and her daughters family survive him.

Mr. Hargis is survived by his son, Gary Hargis, of Owensboro and his daughter, Karen Hargis Kirtley, of Portland, Oregon. He cherished his daughter-in-law Marie Hargis, his son-in-law Bill Kirtley, his five grandchildren, and his six great-grandchildren.

Services are at 1 p.m. Friday at Glenn Funeral Home in Owensboro. Burial will be in Owensboro Memorial Gardens. Visitation is from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday at the funeral home.

The family requests that expressions of sympathy take the form of donations to the American Red Cross. Memorial contribution envelopes are available at the funeral home.