Deane Durwood Fletcher II

Deane Durwood Fletcher, 84, died on Monday, Oct. 23, 2023, at Baylor Scott & White Hospital in Plano, Texas.

Visitation will be from noon-2 p.m. Saturday at Charles W. Smith and Sons Funeral Home, 601 S. Tennessee St., in McKinney. Graveside services will follow at Wilson Chapel Cemetery in Lowry Crossing. 

Durwood was born on June 28, 1939, in Childress, Texas, to Deane Durwood Fletcher I  and Vivian Young Fletcher. He graduated from Port Isabell High School in 1950. He attended Texas Southmost Junior College in Brownsville and Texas A&I in Kingsville before earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Arlington State College in 1963. 

In part because his father was a school administrator, he would live in many towns across Texas, including Turkey, Canadian and Eagle Lake. Another was Justin, Texas, where he met the love of his life, Judy Box Fletcher, on a tennis court at Northwest High School. They were married on Sept. 1, 1962.

They moved to Plano in 1967 and lived for 56 years in the same home on Westridge Drive, where they would raise four children. 

Durwood was an electrical engineer, holding several patents. He worked at several companies during his long career, including Texas Instruments, Teccor Electronics and Seismic Engineering. Another was Docutel, where he helped to develop some of the earliest electronic card readers using magnetic stripe technology for ATMs. Work assignments aboard ship took him to Lake Erie, the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea.

He was an avid fisherman, a loyal Dallas Cowboys fan and a loving husband, father and grandfather. 

He was preceded in death by his youngest son, Daniel Douglas Fletcher; an infant son, Christian Fletcher; and his parents. 

He is survived by his wife; daughters and sons-in-law Robyn and Howard Acevedo of Princeton, Texas, and Melanie and Steve Browne of Katy, Texas; son and daughter-in-law Chris and Suzanne Fletcher of Fairview, Tenn.; sister Darlene Fletcher Moore of Victoria, Texas; sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law Linda and Jim Wilkerson and Philip and Gwen Box; eight grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews, all of whom loved him dearly.