Joyce Arlene Murphey

Joyce Arlene (Nixon) Murphey, 83, died May 21, 2015 at the Comanche County Hospital in Coldwater, KS. She was born June 28, 1931, to Myron Elwood and Jessie Irene (Allely) Nixon, at Maryville, TN. Depression times hit when she was a month old, so the family moved back to Boulder, CO. She graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in 1949 and Colorado A&M in 1953 with a major in animal production and minor in biology. During her school days, she was a 4-H Club member for six years. While in college, she was a member of Delta Delta Delta sorority, active in campus clubs and a member of the college rifle team.

After traveling the western United States working at livestock shows, her first "real job" was as reporter for the RECORD STOCKMAN newspaper and radio KFKA from the Denver stockyards.

That lasted just a little over a year because Mike Murphey, whom she met in Phoenix, AZ, came on the scene. They were married in the Wheat Ridge Methodist Church on August 5, 1956, and moved to Kansas State University, where he finished his interrupted education. They had three children: Rusty, Sandy, and Shauna.

They worked for purebred Hereford breeders in Illinois and Missouri as well as a commercial Hereford ranch in Colorado before moving back to Comanche County in 1964. There the farmed until storms, disease, and other disasters forced them to undergo voluntary foreclosure of the three-generation family farm in 1981. But they were able to raise their children on the farm. She was the Comanche County 4-H horse project leader for several years.

Mike had been elected district magistrate judge in 1980, prior to the foreclosure, and they moved to Coldwater in 1984. When Shauna left for college in 1981, Joyce took a job as feature writer, photographer, graphic arts technician, advertising manager, and for a short term as bookkeeper, with The Western Star weekly newspaper in Coldwater, and remained there until April 2001. On the side, she did freelance writing and photography for magazines and other newspapers, including the National Judges Association Gavel. She also dabbled in art, particularly portraits. She worked part-time for the Protection Press, Measurement Inc., and the Coldwater-Wilmore Library. She also volunteered for South Wind Hospice.

All her life, she felt privileged to do what she chose in the way of study, marriage, family, and career. The family spent a lot of fun time on Lake Coldwater.

Until the 1980's, she and her family were active members of the United Methodist Church. Lay Witness Missions and an interdenominational sharing group were important life-lines for a hurting farm family. When she and her husband moved to Coldwater, they changed their membership to the Assembly of God.

Mike had a number of health problems and died unexpectedly on February 1, 1999. Also preceding her in death were her parents and brother: Dale Nixon.

She is survived by one son: Russell "Rusty" Lynn Murphey and wife Sue Grennan of Protection, Kansas; two daughters: Sandra Elaine Dobrinski and husband Mark of Coldwater, Kansas and Shauna Lee Labo and husband Dave of Saraland, Alabama; her brother: Norman Nixon and wife Bobbi of Clifton, Colorado; sister: Shirley Richardson and husband John of Hurricane, Utah; sister-in-law: Carolyn Nixon of Longmont, Colorado; six granddaughters: Samantha Crewse of Woodward, Oklahoma and Dustyn Murphey of Goodwell, Oklahoma, Sarah Hasten and Angela Rose Denney of Woodward, Oklahoma, and Marilee and Annalee Labo of Saraland, Alabama; one grandson: Jason Dobrinski of Coldwater, Kansas; and five great-grandchildren.

Joyce previously willed her body to the University of Kansas Medical School. Her desire is to plant a tree anywhere in her honor.

Memorials may be made to the Coldwater Ministerial Alliance or the Kansas 4-H Foundation in care of Hatfield-Prusa Funeral Home, P.O. Box 417, Coldwater, KS 67029. Or plant a tree anywhere for her.