BENTON -- Funeral service for Gerald Lee "Gator" Bridwell of Benton will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Ford and Sons Sprigg Street Chapel in Cape Girardeau. The Rev. William Marshall will officiate. Burial will be in Memorial Park in Cape Girardeau, with military rites by VFW Post 3838 of Cape Girardeau.

Friends may call at the funeral home from 4-8 p.m. today. A Masonic service will be held at 7.

Bridwell, 68, died Monday, March 24, 1997, at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau.

He was born June 25, 1928, in Cape Girardeau, son of Floyd P. and Thelma M. Whitson Bridwell. He and Zelma Lee Norris were married May 7, 1949, in Piggott, Ark.

Bridwell was a 1947 graduate of Central High School. He was a retired cement mason. He was a member of Cement Masons Local 908, 32nd Degree member of St. Mark's Masonic Lodge 93 in Cape Girardeau, and American Legion Post 369 at Benton.

He was an artist in the U.S. Army during World War II.

Survivors include his wife; three sons, Gerald Bridwell of Benton, Laddie Bridwell of Chaffee, Lance Bridwell of Rockford, Ill.; five daughters, Cynthia Baldwin and Sena Odom of Scott City, Jackie Johnson of Advance, Azalea Black of Little Rock, Ark., Dayneen Glastetter of Chaffee; two brothers, Floyd Bridwell Jr. of Greers Ferry, Ark., Jim Bridwell of Springfield; 21 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by a daughter, brother and granddaughter.