RALPH H. CRITES

JACKSON -- Memorial service for Ralph James Crites of Tyler, Texas, will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson. The Rev. Grant Gillard will officiate. Burial will be in Russell Heights Cemetery.

Crites, 74, died Tuesday, Jan. 9, 1996, at East Texas Medical Center in Tyler.

He was born April 3, 1921, near Jackson, son of Phillip Walter and Myrtle Hahs Crites. He and Geraldine Loberg were married Dec. 25, 1945.

Crites was a 1938 graduate of Jackson High School and attended Southeast Missouri State University.

He worked at the former Jackson Hosiery Mill 13 years. He then served 33 years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Batesville and El Dorado, Ark., and Tyler, Texas. He was a member and elder at Highland Presbyterian Church in Tyler, and a volunteer with Tyler Food Bank and Salvation Army.

Crites was a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He was an airplane mechanic with the 10th Fighter Squadron, and was awarded four Bronze Stars.

Survivors include his wife; two daughters, Cheryl Ross of Seattle, Wash., Brenda Crites of Cape Girardeau; two sons, Philip Crites of Cape Girardeau, Christopher Crites of Dallas, Texas; a sister, Crites Johnson of Worcester, Mass., and three grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by six brothers.