Buford Dean Groom

February 14, 1927 – September, 1982

Buford D. Groom, 55, Muskogee, Oklahoma, died unexpectedly of a heart attach about 6 p.m. Wednesday, September 15, 1982.

Born on the family farm south of Perry, on February 14, 1927, he was the son of the late Mathew Duke and Ethel Greening Groom. He was an outstanding wrestler for the Perry Maroon wrestling team and graduated from Perry high school in 1944 as an honor student. He was a wrestler and honor student, also, when he graduated with a degree in agriculture education in the school of agriculture from Oklahoma State university in 1950. Buford was initiated into Alpha Zeta, national honorary agriculture fraternity. Chosen for scholarship, leadership, and character, those initiated constituted the upper 2/5 of all agriculture students at Oklahoma A & M college.

On June 4, 1949, he and Wanda Christeene Parrish were married near Edmond, Oklahoma.

In June of 1950, Buford began his career as an assistant teacher in the vocational agriculture department. Within a few months he resigned and accepted a position with the Muskogee Citizens National Bank, where he worked his way from farm consultant to the senior vice president position.

Besides his parents he was preceded in death by three brothers and one sister.

Survivors include: his wife of the home; two sons; one daughter; three grandchildren; six brothers, Glenwood, Perry; Don, Snyder, Texas; De. Hall, Tulsa; M. D., Oklahoma City; Keith, Enterprise, Alaska, and Lynn, Perry; and twin sisters, Maxine Self, Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Hazel Williams, Houston, Texas.

Funeral will be at 10 a.m. Friday at the First United Methodist church of Muskogee. Burial will be at the Memorial Park Cemetery, Muskogee, Oklahoma.