Please wear mask and practice social distancing.

Services Saturday, July 31, 2021 3:00 PM Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church Rev. Carl Harris, Pastor Rev. Ricky McGee, Eulogist

Burial Ft. Sill National Cemetery Monday, August 2, 2021 10:00 AM

Allen Jimmy Reed, Jr. (Jim), was born August 3, 1937 to Allen Jimmy, Sr. and Mary Francis Reed. At Harding High School, he earned the name “Wing-Foot” due to his athletic skills in track. By his junior year he pre-qualified for the Olympic trials and was offered countless scholarships to various colleges. Rather than choosing to pursue an athletic career he decided on marrying Mary Helen, his childhood sweetheart and wife of 63 years to the present. He enlisted in the United States Navy to provide a life for him and Mary Helen in 1958 and trained as an electrician on the naval ships A.E. Anderson and the Butternut. In 1966, Jim was medically retired, but still continued his passion by taking a lead electrician position in naval shipyards of Long Beach, CA.

After the loss of his father, he accepted an electrician job and moved his wife and five children to Wichita Falls, TX, to be closer to his mother. Jim’s life was filled with historic events such as being selected to interview for a news article on integration in mid-1950. This article highlighted Jim as one of eighteen students that would integrate into a white school, Brownwood High, Brownwood, TX. He was the first and only black student on an all-white football and track team. Out of all of the monumental events in Jim’s life, being a loving husband, devoted father, caring grandfather, and great-grandfather was his biggest accomplishments.

He was preceded in death by his mother and father Allen Jimmy Reed, Sr. and Mary Francis.

Jim is survived by his wife, Mary Helen Reed; five children: Allen (Lynette) Reed, III; Kimberly Ann Gould; Patrick K. (Carmela) Reed; Shonda L. (Anton) Altemus; and Eric A. Reed; sibling, Kathryn Gordon and a host of grandchildren, relatives and friends.