Clyde W. Ashcraft

Clyde Willard Ashcraft Jr. jetted off into the great hereafter on the morning of April 1 after an epic, year-long battle with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He lived for 70 years. He was born in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, the 2nd of three children to Ethel and Clyde Ashcraft Sr. The family moved to New Albany, Miss. when he was a boy. He would have finished high-school there except for some unfortunate business that forced him to choose between the Navy and jail. His years in the navy were blessedly peaceful in the lead-up to Vietnam. Any military action that followed was probably not his fault. After the Navy, he returned to school, earned his GDD and attended Northeast Junior College, where he met and married his first wife, Christine Foley. Concurrently, he also learned to fly airplanes. Working as a crop-duster gave him the hours in the air needed to enroll in commercial flight school. He worked as a Flight Engineer at a major airline for 17 years, based out of San Francisco, Calif. He and his family lived in Redwood City and then Oroville, Calif. It was during this time that he discovered his love of raising and training bird-dogs, a career that would give him enormous satisfaction and lead to some of the greatest friendships of his life. It was also during this time that he met and married his second wife, Mickey Miller (nee Collinsworth). He returned with his family to New Albany shortly in 1980, and then moved to Rose Bud, Arkansas to continue his new career. After the tragic death of Mickey a few years later, he drifted for a number of years around Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana training dogs for hunting and field trail competitions. He believed that the secret to training dogs was to be just slightly smarter than the dogs. Over the years his dogs have won several championships and pointed hundreds of thousands of birds. In Magazine, Arkansas, he met and married his third wife, Cindy Nowlin (nee Speece). They ultimately settled in Mt. Ida in 1998 and lived happily in a house nestled against the National Forest and amongst the lovely people of Owley Valley. Clyde Ashcraft Jr. is survived by his devoted wife Cindy, and at least three sons, two grandchildren, five dogs and a flock of homing pigeons. On his last birthday, he decided that the family motto should be "Risus EST Omnia" - Laughter is Everything. There will be a wake for friends and family at their home on Thursday, April 5, and another memorial service in New Albany sometime in the near future. Please contact the family for more information. In lieu of flowers, the family recommends a donation to the ALS Association, an organization working to treat and cure for this rare and debilitating disease. (www.alsa.org).