NEWSCLIP
June 19, 1956
Service
Station Worker Is Killed
A young Pampa High School
student, Rodney Van Davis, 16, died about 7:45 p.m. Monday in a
Duenkel-Carmichael ambulance between Pampa and Amarillo resulting from an
accident earlier at Nick’s Shamrock Service Station located about a mile out
of Pampa on the Amarillo highway. He
is the son of Mr. And Mrs. John R. David, 1029 S. Sumner, who is associated with
the Shamrock Products. Co.
Operator of the station,
Nick Nicholson, said that Rodney and a friend, who both worked at the station,
had just finished airing up a 50 lb. Truck tire when the rim blew off.
The combustion blew the tire up, knocking Rodney unconscious against the
grease rack. A Duenkel- Carmichael
ambulance rushed the boy to the Highland General Hospital about 6 p.m.
They were taking him to Amarillo to a brain specialist when he died. The back of the boy’s skull was fractured.
Rodney would have been a
junior in Pampa High School this year. He
played basketball with the Reapers this past year.
He was a member of the First Baptist Church and had worked for the
service station off and on for about 1½ years.
Funeral services will be
held at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the First Baptist Church in Pampa with the Rev. E.
Douglas Carver officiating. Burial
will be in Memory Gardens.
Survivors are the boy’s
parents, Mr. And Mrs. J.R. Davis; three sisters, Mrs. H.T. Hampton Jr., of
Dallas; Mrs. Kenneth Kyle, Pampa; and Mrs. Roy Barron, Cheyenne; three brothers,
Jerry D. Davis, Dale L. Davis, and Darrel F. Davis, all of Pampa; and two
grandmothers, Mrs. R.I. Davis and Mrs. C.C. Kuykendall, both of Pampa.
Pallbearers for the funeral
will be Meredith Meeker, Jerry Thompson, Don Allen, Darryl Ammons, Kenneth
Smith, and Johnny Nutting.