Glenn Meeks, it was once said, flew an airplane upside down at 400 feet from Abilene to Baird.
"That's not true," he told the Reporter-News in 1974. "It was 800 feet."
Meeks, a lifelong resident of Abilene and manager of the city's municipal airport for 37 years, died Friday at 85. He was buried Tuesday after a funeral service at Elliott-Hamil Funeral Home's Chapel of Faith.
He accepted a temporary job at Abilene's airport, then located at Kinsolving Field where the Abilene Zoo is now, in August 1946 after serving two years in the Pacific in the Navy. Three years later, Feb. 1, 1949, he was appointed airport manager, and served until his retirement Dec. 31, 1986.
"We are in a very good position today because of the work that he did," Don Green, the city's aviation director, said Tuesday. "We have a great airport layout. He was the manager when this airport was built."
Meeks was a charter member and former president of the Texas Airport Managers Association and charter member and former president of the south central chapter of the American Association of Airport Executives. He also served on the Texas Aeronautics Commission and the U.S. Civil Defense Council.
A 1944 graduate of Abilene High School, he was born Oct. 17, 1926, the son of the late Mervyn and Ruby (Cannon) Meeks. He and his late wife, Wanda Sue Partridge of Munday, were married April 4, 1947.
Survivors include a son, Randall of Plano, and a daughter, Melinda of Bakersfield, Calif. Meeks was a member of Southwest Park Baptist Church.
He served as airport manager for 10 city managers, beginning with Boyd J. McDaniel in 1949 and retiring under Ed Seegmiller in 1986.
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