“I’m not in this business
because I need the money.
I’m in it because I love it.”
F
or Kenneth Dyer, running
a funeral home isn’t just
a job. It’s a calling.
Dyer would be the first to say that every
funeral should recall how a loved one’s life
is worth remembering. But after 40 years
in the funeral home business, Dyer said
he felt it was time to call it a day and retire.
All that changed about nine months ago
funeral arrangement was done in Midland
when a personal observation into how a
Dyer’s soon-to-be-open, family-run venture is
believed to be the newest addition the city
drove the affable 71-year-old Cooper native
Georgia native Kenneth
has had in a decade, he said. It’s also going
to jump back in and fill a niche Dyer said
Dyer, right, and his
to be part of a chain of funeral homes Dyer
needed filling in the Permian Basin.
daughter-in-law Shreely
is opening in Pecos, Big Spring and Midland,
Dyer Harris are planning
Dyer said.
“I love the business very well, but I really got
to open Kenneth Dyer
tired of it,” Dyer said. “But believe me in six
Funeral Directors on
Dyer’s profound interest in the funeral home
months I was rested. I find myself working
Grandview Avenue in
industry was sparked during his adolescence
again.”
the upcoming weeks to
when he worked at a funeral home in his
provide affordable funeral
hometown of Cooper. The job that was
service.
intended to give him some pocket money
Dyer, his son Kenneth Harris, and his
daughter-in-law Shreely Dyer Harris, plan on
blossomed into a lifelong preoccupation for
working even more in the coming days as
Dyer, he said.
they prepare to have the Kenneth Dyer Funeral Directors, 1506 Grandview Ave., open
Kenneth Dyer Funeral Directors will provide
in Odessa in three to four weeks. There
burials, cremation, ship in or ship out service
are other funeral homes in Odessa, but
(which involves transporting bodies in or out
of state) and counseling services, Dyer said.
“This is about filling a community need,”
Shreely said. “That’s why he’s back in the
business. He’s really compassionate about
community needs when it comes to burying
(someone’s) loved ones.”
Funeral home ‘a calling,’
proprietor says
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