Paul Dean Dennis

Paul Dean Dennis,89,  was born July 12, 1931, in Carterville, to the parents of Roy H. and Bessie (Haggard) Dennis, the fifth of six children. Paul Dean died May 2, 2021, in Aurora, CO. He moved to El Dorado Springs with his family in 1937 when his father accepted a position with the Missouri State Highway Dept. to supervise the construction and maintenance of state roads throughout the counties of Cedar, Dade and St. Clair.

Dean, as he was better known locally, attended first grade through his senior year in El Dorado Springs. He was active in baseball, basketball and track. He was captain of the basketball team and class president his senior year. Dean enjoyed participating in Boy Scout activities and reached the level of Life Scout along with being initiated into the Boy Scout Order of the Arrow.

After graduating high school in 1949, Dean immediately left to work as a survey aid on a Cadastral Survey Crew for the Bureau of Land Management in Wyoming. He was one of the first of a great many young men from El Dorado Springs and surrounding areas to work for BLM on Cadastral Survey projects. At first, the work was temporary and seasonal, but over the years, Dean and several others from El Dorado made it their careers.

Dean’s first assignment with BLM was relatively brief as he returned to El Dorado to work for Horton Engineering Co., based in Lamar. They surveyed for electrical power lines to be constructed to provide electricity for the REA. When the REA work slowed, Dean worked in construction surveys in the Kansas City area where building was underway for the new Ford plant in Claycomo.

In 1951, Dean attended Tarkio College in Tarkio. In 1952, he was drafted into the U. S. Marine Corps. This was during the Korean War and the Marines were drafting only a very small percentage of the draftees. It was unusual that Dean and his older brother Roy were both drafted into the Marines. Dean began his military service in San Diego, trained at Camp Pendleton, CA, and served his final year in Camp Nara, Japan, as Battalion Pay Clerk. He spent Thanksgiving Day, 1953, on Mount Fuji, Japan, participating in “winter training.” He said it was a cold but interesting experience. After his discharge from the Marines in 1954, Dean renewed his career with the BLM in Wyoming. He worked summers and attended Southwest Missouri State College during the winters.

On New Years’ Eve, 1955, Dean was partying with friends when he met his bride to be. It was love at first sight for him, he knew this was the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Her name was Julia Elliott. It took him about six months to convince her to marry him. They were married Aug. 19, 1956, in El Dorado. They moved to Springfield where Dean attended SMS and Julia worked as a seamstress. After one quarter of school, they moved to Lennox, CA, where Dean found work as a computer programmer and Julia worked for the telephone company. In 1957, Dean decided to go back to work as a surveyor for the BLM in Denver, CO.

Dean’s work took him and his wife to several of the western states. Their first child, Cynthia, was born in Nevada in 1958, on Father’s Day. Dean had been working in New Mexico and made it back just the day before the birth. Their second child, Keely, was born in Fort Collins, CO, in 1960, and their son, Joey, was born in Denver, CO, in 1962. Julia was 23 years old with three small children, keeping the family functional while Dean spent considerable time away from home on his job. Julie, as Dean called her, had her hands full and managed quite well.

Dean was proud that he started his surveying career at the lowest level and over the years, advanced through the ranks to become the next highest grade level in Cadastral Surveys at that time. He was 39 years old when he was first promoted to that grade. At the time, he was serving as Chief of Lands and Surveys for the Trust Territory Government of Micronesia, headquartered in Saipan of the Mariana Islands. Some of his other assignments included BLM Cadastral Survey Branch Chiefs in New Mexico, Utah and the Denver Service Center. In 1981, Dean went on assignment to Saudi Arabia as a consultant to the Ministry of Agriculture and Water of the Saudi Arabian Government. His primary responsibility was to assist in the design and implementation of a land survey and records system. After two years there, Dean returned to the States and spent the final six months of his government career in the Washington Office of Cadastral Surveys. He retired on his 53rd birthday (1984) with 30 years of service. He and Julie bought a home on the Lake of the Ozarks near Camdenton, and spent the next 15 years enjoying the lake area and getting in a couple more consulting jobs with the Government of Guam and a small island called Kosrae. Dean’s work gave him and Julie the opportunity to travel to many parts of the world. They viewed the Statue of David and climbed to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy; visited the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre in France; crawled into the Great Pyramid in Egypt; went on a photo safari in Kenya, Africa; and walked along the Great Wall of China. He loved fishing and watching baseball and football games.

Dean and Julie sold their lake home in 1999 and moved to Fort Collins, CO, to be nearer to their children and grandchildren in Aurora, CO, and Cody, WY.

He is preceded in death by his wife, Julie; son, Joey; parents, and sisters, Marge Carter, Evelyn Harvey and Melba McPeak.

He is survived by daughters, Cindy (Phil) Abshire, Aurora, CO, Keely, Evergreen, CO; six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren; brother, Roy (Marvelene); sister, Donna Hopper, and numerous nieces and nephews.