Robert Priest Sr

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Biography

The biography for Robert Priest is empty. What can you add? I am the middle of three children born to Bobbie Joe Priest and Tommie Lee [Mountain] Priest. I was born at the Naval hospital in San Diego, CA on May 9th, 1959.

My father was still serving in the Navy when we moved to Naval housing at Waukegan, IL. Mother's and Dad's marriage fell apart there and she took us boys to our grandparents' (Tom and Lora Mountain) in Rockwood, TN. At the time they lived at 503 S. Patton Ave.

Mom rented a small house just up a side street and a very short walk from Grandma and Papa's house. Mom worked at Peggy Ann Truck Stop there in Rockwood in order to support us and herself. The year was 1962, and I was three.

The following year Mom's sister and my aunt, Hazel, and her husband Otis Holifield bought and small two story house in Ooltewah, TN, and Mom rented it from them. The house was across from the ballpark and at Watkin and State streets. We lived here until Mom decided we boys needed a strong male figure in our lives.

Our Uncle George, Mom's brother, offered to help move us out to his forty acres at Eagleton, AR and provide that strong male figure. So, in 1973 we moved to Arkansas, carved a campground and mobile home space out of the woods and settled in for the next six years.

After graduation from Acorn High School in May of 1978 I enlisted in the US Navy for the next six years. I was honorably discharged on June 12, 1984. I was an Interior Communications Specialist, and I served on two ships. The first was the USS Mt. Whitney LCC-20, homeported at the Norfolk Naval Base, Norfolk, VA.

I broke a finger pretty badly (shattered) during an off-duty football game between a few of us guys from the ship. I was pulled off the ship for surgery to wire the fragments back together. The surgeon was a Dr. Seugerra and I was hospitalized at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital, in VA.

I was placed on limited duty and assigned to the First Lt. Division at Norfolk Naval Base. Almost a year and a half later the detailer for my rate (IC) finally remembered me and sent me back to sea duty on the USS America CV-66.

I served on the America in the PLAT (Pilot Landing Aid Television) shop as a technician and flight deck camera operator. it was here that I finished out my enlistment.

My original intention was to remain in Virgina and seek work at the Naval shipyards in Portsmouth. Instead, at the behest of my Mom, I returned to Eagleton/Mena, AR.

Work was scarce and I bounced from job to job looking for steady gainful employment. My first job was as a tech for small music and electronics store that sold pianos as well. It ended when the owner was sent to jail for insurance fraud over stolen pianos.

It was early 1984 that I met Deana Marie Orthman (born Gabbard). We dated for a little while before I landed work for me through my brother doing industrial x-ray work on a project in Brownville, TX. The company was Houston Inspection, Inc. After returning to Mena, and a long distance relationship via telephone, she and I picked up where we left off. Before long I was working in Houston for Houston Inspection through the week and returning to Mena on the weekends. On one of those weekends in Aug., she returned with me to Houston and we married after a civil service at the courthouse downtown on a rainy afternoon on the 27th.

We used my credit and rented a home with another couple, also from Mena and married at the same time as we were. The deal I had made with the other couple on the bills fell through when then went off on the first job. We were stuck with mounting bills that the other couple had acknowledged partial responsibility for, but and unwillingness to pay. So, I and Deana loaded everything up in our old 1972 yellow Ford F100 and headed back broke to Mena.

We both worked various jobs there and scraping by. She became pregnant with Robert Jr., and we moved in with Mom there at Eagleton to save money. I got a job at Aalfs, a clothing plant south of Mena, as a mechanic working on the sewing machines.

I was working there when my firstborn came into the world on November 8, 1987. We had moved out of Mom's place and over into a rental house on Holly Springs Rd. east of Mena. I continued to work at Aalf's and had even gotten Deana a job in the laundry at Aalf's on the evening shift. things soon went to hell.

There had been rumors of infidelity on the part of Deana early on during our marriage while I was working offshore. I brushed them off as I had no proof and the source had a motivation to lie. I t came to light she was having an affair and we separated. I spent the better part of a month working on solving our issues and becoming a family again. I didn't become successful until she left Robert Jr. and I at Mena park to go party with friends headed to Dallas, TX. The success occurred when a partied out and stranded Deana called on Sunday from Dallas asking for a rescue. I told her there would be no rescue unless she agreed to stop the partying, return home, and put in an effort to resolve our issues.

I quit Aalf's and went bank into pipeline x-ray, taking Deana on the road with me whenever possible. When she became pregnant with Thomas she stayed home. This worked out since I was working in Eldorado, KS at the Texaco refinery for Bill Miller, Inc. of Henryetta, OK. and coming home on the weekends. Not all of her pregnancy was spent doing this but much of it early on was.

Thomas was born while I was out on the road pipelining. Not long afterward I was sent back to the Texaco refinery by Bill Miller. This time, it was to do a turnaround that was to last six months. Of course, Deana and the boys came with.

This living on the road and then returning to Mena continued for awhile. Then, after a job in Hobbs, NM we returned to Mena to await the next job. She went to work at a local restaurant to help while I did odd jobs and drew unemployment. I did a job in NYC using a source to control an internal coating machine. They liked me, so just before Christmas I was told by Miller that I would be sent to Prudoe Bay, AK the day after Christmas to do the same there. The job was to last a month. This was also the time of the first Gulf War by Bush Sr.

When this job ended I returned home. Pipeline work continued for just over another year. It came to a crashing halt when I was picked up in Henryetta, OK by the wife and kids. I had just driven back from Flagstaff, AZ. She drove onto the interstate headed towards home some three hours away. Several miles down the road she handed me a note. The note stated she wanted a divorce, me to get my stuff out of the house, and leave everything including the kids to here. She stated she was already seeing someone else. This was a Sunday evening. I went to bed after midnight, exhausted from trying to save my marriage again.

Monday morning I awoke refreshed and with a clear head. I told her I had done nothing to deserve any of this. I told her that if she wanted to be with him then it won't be in my house, with my kids, and driving my truck. She was the one to leave.

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Robert Priest at registration.