Marion Ray Watley passed away peacefully with his loving wife by his side on May 12, 2021. He lost his hard fought battle with a lengthy illness and dementia in Pecos, Texas.

Ray was born in Silverton, Texas, on Jan. 11, 1939. His mother passed away when he was 18 months old, and his biological aunt, Julia Stewart and her husband Jeff Stewart, took him to Marathon, Texas, to live. They were Mother and Daddy to Ray. His brother, Charlie Brittain Parker, 12 years old, continued to live in Silverton with his grandmother.

Ray was a heavy equipment operator, a trucker, and a wildlife technician. He worked as a trapper for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for five years in Pinto Canyon at the foot of the Chinati Mountains south of Marfa, Texas. In 1965, he went to work for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department at Black Gap Wildlife Management Area in south Brewster County. Ray worked with the desert bighorn sheep restoration program, mule deer hunts, trapping predatory animals, and maintaining miles of the area roads and hunting and fishing camps.

In 1972, Ray moved to the Sierra Diablo Wildlife Management Area north of Van Horn, Texas, where another desert bighorn sheep brood pasture had been built. He worked with the public hunts and inventory of bighorns, as well as mule deer, pronghorn, and game birds in West Texas. Ray retired from Texas Parks and Wildlife in 1993 to work in his and his sons trucking business.

Ray lived in Van Horn with his wife, Rebecca “Becky” Ann Welch Watley. They married on Feb. 14, 1959, in Marfa.

Ray was preceded in death by his biological father Robert Watley, Julia and Jeff Stewart, and his brother Charlie Parker. He is survived by his wife Becky of 62 years, sons Alen Ray, Stewart James (children Garrett and April), Mark (wife Pam and children Danielle and Jackson Ray), and three sisters-in-law.

A memorial for Ray we be scheduled at a later time.