Jack Hightower passed away at his home in Portales, NM on Friday, September 24, 2021 after a 15 year battle with cancer. A celebration of life will be held at 2:00 p.m., on Tuesday, September 28, at Emmanuel Baptist Church with Jimmy Roberts, Clovis Gray, and Josh Faucett officiating. Burial will follow in the Portales Cemetery with Randy Mitchell, Steve Collins, Kenneth Clark, Robert Grimes, Gene Brown, and Bob Hunt serving as pallbearers. Honorary pallbearers will be all the men and women he worked with at Roosevelt County Rural Electric.
Jack was born in Levelland, TX on June 20, 1946 to his parents Clint and Nell Hightower. In the sixth grade, the family moved to Portales, where he graduated from Portales High School in 1966. That summer, he left for basic training in Ft. Bliss, TX to serve in the National Guard. In 1967, he went to work for the Roosevelt County Road Department and then for C&S oil in 1968. On February 9, 1968 he married his high school sweetheart, Nancy Stark. Shortly after, he went to work for Roosevelt County Rural Electric for 33 ½ years as a lineman and retired in 2002. He loved people and enjoyed the people who were customers for RCEC. They became like family to him, as did so many others.
He was a member of Emmanuel Baptist Church Family where he accepted Christ as his savior in 1982. He served there on the building and grounds committee, drove the van, worked in the sound booth, helped Nancy teach the 4 and 5 year old Sunday school class, and loved to deliver meals on wheels.
He is survived by Nancy, his wife of 53 years; his three children, daughter DeAnna and husband Dustin Hall, daughter Shawna and husband Cliff Neece, and son Ryan and wife Christine all of Portales; his nine grandchildren who called him “Pop”, Taryn Fox, Lynnde Hall, Kellan, Kaden, Jase, Rowen, and Ryker Hightower, and Briley and Chanden Neece. He is also survived by his siblings; sister Cindi Onstott and husband Doyle, brother Donny Hightower and Frances Wall, and brother Melvin Hightower.
He is preceded in death by his parents, Clint and Nell Hightower and his sister, AlvaLoy “Dinkie” Howard, and a half brother Bill Hightower.
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