Paul Gene Roden and Ruth Ann Stallings visit last October at Paris Junior College, where both were honored — she as a distinguished alumna and he into the
Academic Hall of Honor. Roden died Monday while working in his yard. (eParisExtra.com photo by Charles Richards)
Paul Gene Roden, a lifelong resident of Paris and president of the Paris Junior College board of regents for 12 years, died Monday afternoon while working in his yard with his wife and grandson.
He was 75.
Paul Gene Roden
Before his retirement in 2006, he was a funeral director at Gene Roden’s Sons Funeral Home (now Starrett Funeral Home) for 22 years. Then, for 20 years, he was an officer at Northeast United Life Insurance Co. specializing in the sale of funeral insurance and pre-arranged funerals.
Funeral services are pending at Starrett Funeral Home.
“I have always been and remain active in civic and charitable affairs, and my family worships at Lamar Avenue Church of Christ,” Roden said proudly in an interview in May of last year.
He is survived by his wife, Anita, his high school classmate. They married on Dec. 31, 1978, and have four children and six grandchildren.
PJC honored Roden last fall by inducting him into its Academic Hall of Honor.
Roden attended Paris schools and Paris Junior College before graduating in 1960 from Southern Methodist University as an accounting major, and graduating in 1961 from mortuary college in the top 10 percent of his class before following in his father’s footsteps in the family business.
He was elected to the PJC board of regents in 1988 and was elected in 1992 as vice president of the board and in 2000 as president, a position he held until leaving the board in 2012.
He also served on the board of the Ark-Tex Council of Governments from 1999 to 2012 and was a director and board chair of the Workforce Solutions of Northeast Texas from 2005 to 2008.
Roden was a 50-year member of the Rotary Club.He was active in Casa for Kids, where he served for more than a decade as a volunteer court-appointed advocate for children. He became involved with the local Girl Scout Council in 1966, serving three terms as president. He was a director and tutor in the Literary Council and volunteered at the Downtown Food Pantry.