Majors Roy and Mary Dell Tolcher entered honored retirement after 44 and 43 years of officership respectively. The special evening in their honor was held in Arlington, Texas, at the new Cowboys Stadium in the club section.
The Tolchers maintained a high profile in the stadium, with 72-foot-tall images of Roy and Mary Dell appearing on every monitor in the stadium.
The venue was appropriate as the Tolchers spent most of their careers in the Arkansas-Oklahoma and Texas divisions. Their A-OK appointments included corps commands in Clinton, West Tulsa, Ada and Ardmore, Okla.; and Springdale and North Little Rock, Ark. In Texas they served at Camp Hoblitzelle, Houston Area Command and at divisional headquarters in their final appointment, as well as at Bryan-College Station, Arlington, Big Spring, McKinney, Lewisville, Killeen and Fort Worth.
Earlier in their careers the Tolchers served at Clearwater, Fla.; Atlanta Bellwood, Georgia DHQ, Huntington, W. Va.; Pascagoula, Miss.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Gainesville and Miami, Fla.
Roy and Mary Dell Tolcher met during officer training in Atlanta. Roy, a second-year cadet and member of the Defenders of the Faith session, carried Mary Dell’s trunk to her dormitory. “She never even said ‘thank you,’” Roy recalled, admitting that he saw something special in her nonetheless. Mary Dell, a member of the Witnesses to the Faith session, was married to Roy Aug. 19, 1967.
Majors Roy and Judy Ward, long-time friends of Roy and Mary Dell, shared their recollections of the honorees, as did Roy’s sister, Major Barbara Branscum. Majors Wes and Carol Short led in the singing of Mary Dell’s session song, joined by her session mates in attendance.
The evening was a celebration of their faithful service and the faithfulness of God in their lives. With the stadium clock ticking down, Lt. Colonel Jack T. Waters conducted the retirement ceremony and presented certificates of retirement to Roy and Mary Dell.
