Robert "Bob" Dill

Robert Madison Dill, 64, passed away on Sunday, September 8, 2019.

Mr. Dill was born January 23, 1955 in Lake Charles, Louisiana to Dorothy Lee Wood Dill, school teacher, and Donald Madison Dill, machinist. He was the youngest of three. His older brother by five years was Donald Bruce Dill, deceased 2001, and his sister is Elizabeth Ellen Dill Eddy, of Heritage, Tennessee.

Bob showed a talent for all things mechanical at an early age, fixing bicycles, winning a science fair prize by making a steam engine and, with his father’s help, rebuilding a 60’s VW engine.

He grew up in Lake Charles, where he graduated from Alfred M. Barbe High School in 1974 and obtained a bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University in 1978. He began working at age 15 part time at a local gas station. During college years he was a book salesman and a university cafeteria worker.

He met his sweetheart, Carolyn Joy Offill, in high school when she was 16 and he was 18. They attended the same university and then married September 2, 1978 in Lake Charles. They were married 41 years. They lived the first two years in Shreveport, LA, but mostly they were in the Houston area, since 1980.

The rest of his life was a broad variety of mechanical engineering positions, primarily engineering sales. By the end of his working years, he was a jack of all trades, able to diagnose in field problems, write manuals, train new engineers, sell equipment, and even created a new device. He traveled widely for business, both national and international travel, as far north as Prudhoe Bay, and south to Colombia to train engineers, west to Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, and east to Dubai, Egypt and Russia. He enjoyed visiting offshore oil rigs in the Gulf.

Fascinated by old planes, he watched many airshows and built many radio-controlled airplanes, teaching his sons how to fly them. He was interested in anything mechanical or electrical, taking pictures of boat engines, pipes, dams, etc. while on vacation.

A devoted father, he took his family on camping trips every year, visited museums and zoos, and was involved in Boy Scouts. He helped his sons work on long term Scout projects. They took long strenuous hikes such as to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, up high Colorado peaks and desert hikes to Boot Canyon in Big Bend National Park. Their last special trip together was to Wisconsin to see the huge Oshkosh Air Show.

He was a member of Woodhaven Baptist Deaf Church, since 1980, where he was a Sunday School teacher for several years for older children. He was involved in many church activities doing such as BBQ’s and cooked at the Deaf Women’s Retreat at Round Top, Texas.

He is survived by his wife, Carolyn Dill; sons, John Wilson Dill of Denton, Texas, married to Karissa Lynn Allen Dill and Andrew Henry Dill of Freeport, Texas, married to Kimberly Yen Hoang Dill; and two grandsons, Ryan Truong Dill and Steven Son Dill.

His funeral service will be held at 11:00 AM on Saturday, September 14, 2019 at the Johnson Funeral Home Chapel. Dr. Eric Hankins will officiate. Burial will follow in his family cemetery, Hopewell Cemetery, in DeRidder, LA. A gathering of family members and friends will be at the funeral home on Saturday from 9:00 AM until the start of the service.