- Date Of Birth: July 29, 1913
- Date Of Death: March 30, 2012
- State: Texas
July 29, 1913 – March 30, 2012
Ben Franklin Powell, 98, died at home in Boerne on March 30, 2012. His wife, Pam, was by his side at the time of his death. Ben was one of five children, the son of Virgie Mae Cooper and William Jefferson Powell. The Powell family lived in rural central Texas near Brady and Brownwood for many years. Ben attended school at Rochelle, Texas and then at the University of Texas in Austin. He joined the Navy during WWII and became a Chief Petty Officer. With civil engineering in his background, he was assigned to work with the newly created Navy Construction Battalions (Navy Seabees). He trained new Seabee recruits at Camp Peary, VA before he was sent to Pearl Harbor to help in the rebuilding efforts there. He was discharged from the US Navy in 1944. Ben Powell retired from three different careers in his lifetime. After leaving the Navy in 1944 he opened a locksmith operation in California and started his family. He soon moved the family to Texas and became active in construction work all over Texas. He joined the staff of the Mexia State School for the Mentally Retarded in Mexia, Texas, where he was head of all maintenance and construction at the State School. In the early 1970s his family moved to Austin where he joined the staff of the University of Texas at Austin. As part of his work at the University, he was sent to Fort Davis, Texas to coordinate final construction of a phase of the McDonald Observatory”s new telescope building. He was a construction inspector at the University of Texas at San Antonio when the new campus was first being built outside of San Antonio. He retired after twenty-five years with the University of Texas system. In his next career path Ben Powell joined the staff of the San Antonio Independent School District in San Antonio, and was in charge of inspection of construction projects throughout the district. After many years with the ISD, Ben retired once again. In 1970 he moved to Boerne and built his own home on Becker Street where he lived until the time of his death. Not wanting to remain idle for long, Ben opened Powell Locksmith Service and he and his wife, Pam, operated the company. All his life Ben was a story-teller. His detailed memory was known to be quite accurate. He looked forward to attending the annual Powell family reunions in central Texas and he was often called upon to talk about the events he experienced and the people he knew from the past. He was an avid golfer in his younger years and he followed the sport until the time of his passing. He loved dogs and always had a dog in his life from the time he was a very young boy on the farmland of rural Texas. Ben was preceded in death by his two brothers, Eldon Powell and Elmer Powell and two sisters, Ally Maud McCullough and a three year old younger sister, his first wife, and recently his stepson, Lance A. Rankin. He is survived by his wife, Pam Rankin Powell, and his daughter and son-in-law, Sara and Malcolm Long, of West Virginia.
