Merrell Dewayne Jones, age 82, of Hot Springs, Ark., passed away January 11, 2024, at CHI St. Vincent Hospital following complications from a severe stroke.

He was born August 9, 1941, in Dunklin County, Mo. (Allen's Island). He was the only child of Roy and Effie Minor Jones; he grew up on his father's cotton farm in the bootheel of Missouri.

Merrell graduated from Holcomb High School in May 1959. After an early life-long fascination with airplanes and helicopters, he joined the United States Air Force on September 8, 1959.

Willa M. Hair, 93, passed away on January 19, 2024, at the Cedar Village Care Center in Ness City, Kansas.  

She was born on June 14, 1930, in Ransom, Kansas, the daughter of William and Ruth (Stull) Snodgrass.

Willa was a homemaker and farmwife. She married Orville Hair in Brownell, Kansas on September 19, 1948. He died on August 6, 2017.

She was a member of the Ransom Methodist Church and Young at Heart Senior Center in Brownell.