Benton F. Breeding, 97

The family of Benton Fred Breeding, 97, of Gainesville, will host a celebration of life starting at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 19, 2017, at First Christian Church in Gainesville with Masonic services beginning at 3 p.m. Mr. Breeding died March 14 at Gainesville Health Care Center in Gainesville.
He was born Oct. 4, 1919, in Locust, the youngest of the five children of Eloise and Benjamin Franklin Breeding. He grew up in the Locust community, where his parents farmed and operated a general store and post office. He attended the one-room school at Locust and then rode with his older siblings in the family's Model T to attend high school in Gainesville, where he graduated in 1938. On June 3, 1939, in Ava, he married his high school sweetheart, Genelle McDonald, a month after her graduation from Gainesville High School.
With the strong encouragement of Mr. Breeding's father, they began to pursue their teaching careers by enrolling in Southwest Baptist College in Bolivar. After completing enough credit hours, they began teaching in the one-room schools of Ozark County. Mr. Breeding taught at Charity, Locust and Pontiac before he and his wife moved to the Gainesville school system. After their children, Faunlee and Mike, were born, they continued their education by attending school many summers at Southwest Missouri State Teachers College in Springfield and finished their degrees in 1956. Mr. Breeding completed his master's and specialist's degrees in evening classes at Drury University in Springfield, graduating magna cum laude and with membership in Phi Delta Kappa; he also earned hours toward a doctorate.
At Gainesville Elementary School, Mr. Breeding taught junior high classes that included his own two children. He was also elementary principal and coached the junior high basketball team. At the end of many school years, he loaded his students into an old stock truck and hauled them to his farm to enjoy baseball games and cookouts. The Breedings also served as chaperones for many Gainesville senior class trips to Washington, D.C., and Florida.
In 1968, he became superintendent of the Gainesville school system, a post he held until his retirement in 1982. In recognition of his 39 years of exemplary service to the students of Ozark County, the Gainesville High School football stadium was named in his honor.
Throughout his teaching career, he also enjoyed traveling throughout the area to work as a high school basketball referee with his referee partner, Joe Ebrite. He and his wife also owned and operated a book store and soda fountain in Gainesville for a while.
The Breedings enjoyed traveling the country in various campers and motorhomes. Their adventures included two driving trips through Mexico and other trips to Florida, Texas and California. For their 49th wedding anniversary they flew to Alaska to visit lifelong friends Dr. Marv and Dorsey Looney; they were planning a trip to Hawaii for their 50th anniversary when Mr. Breeding suffered the first of two heart attacks he would endure during this later years.
Many happy hours were spent at the Breedings' houseboat on Bull Shoals Lake in Pontiac. He was proud of saying he had water-skied at age 60.
He also raised cattle and enjoyed riding around his land to check on them. Moments before he died, he looked out the window and saw the snow falling on his land surrounding the Gainesville Health Care Center. The pull of the hills and hollers of Ozark County never left him, and he often said there's no prettier county in Missouri than this one.
He was a lifetime member of the First Christian Church in Gainesville, a Shriner, a 60-plus-year member of the Gainesville Lions Club, a 75-year Mason and a member of the Elks Club.
He is survived by his children, Faunlee Harle and husband Fred, and Mike Breeding and wife Judy, all of Springfield; grandchildren Brittnee Mayse and husband Matthew of Springfield, Jonathan Breeding of Washington, D.C., and Matthew Breeding of Springfield; great-grandson Evan Mayse; many nieces, nephews and cousins; and special friends Bonnie Ebrite, LaVese and Kenny Ericksen, and Robby Barnett.
He was preceded in death by his parents; his wife, Genelle, who died in 2005; siblings Leslie Breeding, Donnie Owens and Thana Mahan, and an infant brother, Merle; and his sisters- and brothers-in-law, Alma Luna and husband Gene, Beulah "Toots" Carter and husband Hayden, and Mary Ruth Landers and husband R. G.
Burial in Gainesville Cemetery will be at 10 a.m. Monday. Memorial contributions may be made to the Benton and Genelle Breeding Scholarship Fund in the Community Foundation of the Ozarks or to the Ozark County Historium, P.O. Box 4, Gainesville, MO 65655.
Arrangements by Clinkingbeard Funeral Home, Gainesville.