Sidney Dade Cox, Jr.

Sidney Dade Cox Jr., 96, of Springdale, passed away peacefully at home Tuesday, March 5, 2019. He was married 64 years to Marie "Freddie" Cox, who died in 2017. The son of Sidney Dade and Margie Watts Cox, Sidney was born April 5,1922, in Lowndes County, Mississippi, where he was raised. He graduated from Lee High School in Columbus in 1940 and, in 1943, from Mississippi State University in Starkville, where he was Sigma Pi fraternity president and earned a B.A. degree. He was then commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the U.S. Army and served in the Pacific in the 1899th Engineering/Aviation Battalion. He built airfields on Guam from which B-29s launched attacks on Japan. He was discharged as a captain and lived in Mississippi and Atlanta. He re-entered the military in the newly developed U.S. Air Force and was stationed at Nellis AFB, Nevada, then Akron, Ohio, teaching ROTC. He was then transferred to Travis AFB, California. While in California, he met Marie Evelyn Friederick, and the two married May 2, 1953, in Reno, Nevada. They had four children: David, Robert, Steven and Sandra. Sid obtained an MS in hospital administration from Baylor University in 1955. Other military postings included San Antonio, Texas; Nagoya and Tokyo, Japan; Vandenberg AFB, California; Maxwell AFB, in Montgomery, Alabama; Offutt AFB in Omaha, Nebraska; and the AF Surgeon General's Office, Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1966 and moved his family to Fayetteville. He returned to college, earning a teaching certificate, and taught 10 years at Fayetteville High School, retiring in 1977. He enjoyed woodworking and building mountain dulcimers and taught many dulcimer building classes in late 1970s and early 1980s. His hobbies included fishing, woodworking, playing and building dulcimers, traveling with his camper and Elderhostel programs. Sid volunteered many hours at the Arkansas Air Museum in Fayetteville, Jones Center for Families in Springdale, and the VA Hospital in Fayetteville. After the loss of his wife, he became an advocate of the grief support programs with Willard J. Walker Hospice in Fayetteville. In addition to his wife, he was preceded in death by parents, brother William A. Cox, and his sister Lelia Beatrice Harris. He is survived by sons David (Kate), Robert (Brenda), Steven (Dianne) and daughter Sandra Birchfield (Jody), three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. The funeral will take place at 12:30 p.m. Monday, March 11, at Sequoyah United Methodist Church in Fayetteville followed by burial at the National Cemetery. Visitation will be from 1-3 p.m. Sunday, March 10, at Moore's Chapel in Fayetteville. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorials be sent to Willard J. Walker Hospice of Fayetteville or the Wounded Warrior Project. To sign the online guest book visit www.mooresfuneralchapel.com.