Taps

 Day is done, gone the sun
 from the lake, from the hill, 
 from the sky.

 All is well, safely rest.
 God is nigh.

 Thanks and praise for our days
'neath the sun, 'neath the stars,
'neath the sky.

 As we go, this we know.
 God is nigh.

Oren Dale Belcher, 70, died at 9:55 p.m. Saturday, July 31, 2004, at his home near Paris.

Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Pickering Funeral Home with the Rev. Erion Burgman officiating. Visitation will be on Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the funeral home. Burial will be in Pleasant Hill Cemetery near Paris.

     Mr. Belcher was born on August 28, 1933, in Mexico, a son of Joseph Hamilton and Beulah M. Craig Belcher. On August 10, 1982, in Fayette, he married Gail B. Atterberry, who survives at the home.

     He served in the U. S. Army from 1957 until 1959 and attained the rank of Staff Sergeant. Mr. Belcher had been a heavy equipment operator for 44 years and worked most of his life for a variety of contractors in the Columbia and Central Missouri areas. He retired in 1998.

    In addition to his wife, survivors include one son, Robert Lee Belcher, California, Mo.; a stepson, Gary Ray Smith, Paris; two daughters, Sandra Kay Stephens, Columbia, and Judith Marie Thompson, Fayette; three brothers, Joseph Clarence Belcher, Mexico, Gary Edwin Belcher, Thompson, and Kenneth E. Belcher, Mexico; a sister, Margorie Johnson, Mexico; 13 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren.

    His parents, three brothers, Samuel, Evert and Donald (Deacon), and three sisters, Ethel, Eula, and Darlene, preceded him in death.

 Pickering Funeral Home  
Caring Service Since 1884