More detail on this person: Delmer Mason
(Mac) McConnell, 85, died July 23, 2011, at home
with family. This information was last updated 05/18/2016
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Date posted on this site:
03/10/2024
Copyright © 1998 - 2024 Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association
Service is 10 a.m. Saturday, July 30, in the
Baum-Carlock-Bumgardner Chapel with Rev.
Charles Mays officiating. Visitation is 6-8 p.m.
Friday at Baum-Carlock-Bumgardner Funeral Home.
The coffin will be draped with a flag flown during
Captain Megan McConnell's last air assault mission
in Afghanistan and given to her grandfather for
his 85th birthday. Pallbearers are Jud Lively,
Jack Lowey, Rodney Butler, John Rollins, Chuck
Hogan and Mike McConnell. Burial with military
honors will follow in Woodland Park Cemetery.
Mac was born April 13, 1926, in Cherokee, Okla.,
to Mason Orville and Zola Pauline (Potter)
McConnell. He was a proud three-war veteran. He
enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1943 at the age of 17
and served in the South Pacific Theater during
World War II. In September 1950 he joined the
Oklahoma National Guard and as a member of "B"
Battery, 189th Field Artillery, 45th Infantry
Division (Oklahoma National Guard), deployed to
Korea in December 1951.
It was during the Korean War that he had one of
his proudest moments in the Army. In February
1952 Mac received a battlefield commission and
promotion to the rank of second lieutenant in the
field artillery. Following his return to the U.S.,
he was selected for pilot training, earning his
wings in 1954. He later transitioned to
helicopters and earned his rotary wing rating in
1958.
In 1965 he deployed to Vietnam as an Army
helicopter pilot commanding a helicopter
maintenance company. Completing that combat
tour, he was transferred to Fort Wolters, Texas,
for duty as a helicopter instructor pilot. On Aug.
31, 1967, Mac transferred to the retired list with
more than 20 years of active military service.
After his retirement he remained in the aviation
business as an instructor for Southern Airways at
Fort Wolters, in the oil patch off the coast of
Louisiana, in the Quebec province of Canada and in
California before he finally retired for good. Mac
moved one more time to Mineral Wells in 1994,
where he lived until his death. He was a member of
the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign
Wars, DAV, National Order of Battlefield
Commission and the Fort Wolters Chapter Vietnam
Helicopter Pilots.
Survivors include his wife, Nancy (Sanders)
McConnell; son, Mike McConnell and wife, Doris, of
Mineral Wells; daughters, Cinda Parenti and
husband, Nicky, of Mineral Wells, Jana South and
husband, Danny, of Amarillo, Texas; grandson,
Nicolaus Parenti, of Mineral Wells;
granddaughters, Lindsay Parenti, of Mineral Wells,
Captain Megan McConnell, USA of Fort Campbell,
Ky., Morgan McConnell, of Mineral Wells, and
Makayla South, of Amarillo; great-grandson,
Christian Shea, of Mineral Wells; and sister,
Dorlene Hutson, of Huntsville, Ala.
He was preceded in death by his parents; brother,
Darrell; and son, Mason Martin McConnell.
Condolences may be left at
www.bcbfuneralhome.com
Baum-Carlock-Bumgardner Funeral Home
From: mineralwellsindex.com and Nancy
McConnell