Joyce M Hodges

Joyce M. Hodges, 91, of Amarillo, passed peacefully on February 11, 2025.

Mattie Joyce Merydith Hodges, 91, of Amarillo, passed away on February 11, 2025, following a brief illness. She leaves behind a daughter, Jan Hodges, and her husband, Arthur Ryan Jr., of Richmond, Virginia; grandchildren Charles and Santerra Ryan of Pulaski, Virginia, and James Ryan of Colorado Springs, Colorado; as well as a sister, Peggy Duke Urban of Amarillo. She also leaves her sisters-in-law, Janice Roeckeman Hodges, Mary McCaffree Simmers, Deborah Hodges Beckham, Anndel Martin, and Linda Banger, as well as her brothers-in-law, James Beckham and David Simmers. She is greatly missed by all these, as well as by her many cousins, her countless and adoring nieces and nephews, their spouses, and their children and grandchildren, and by her many friends near and far.

She is predeceased by her beloved husband of 53 years, James O. Hodges, parents Rachel and Coy Merydith, parents-in-law Alma and Oliver Hodges, sister Pearl Thompson and brother Ed Merydith, as well as sisters-in-law Lois Merydith, Theresia Hodges, and Freddie Hodges, and brothers-in-law Leroy Thompson, C.T. Duke, Bob Urban, Bill Hodges, Don Hodges, Robert Hodges, and Gary Hodges, and nieces Sheryl Nichols, Debbie Herrington, and Leah Hodges, and nephews John Duke and Michael Hodges, and great-niece Brooke Nichols. 

Joyce was born in 1933 in Lipscomb County and grew up at Valley Park Ranch. She graduated from Booker High School and West Texas State University (now WTAMU) and lived in Amarillo, West Lafayette, Indiana, Boulder, Colorado, for over thirty years. She also resided in Richmond and later Kilmarnock, Virginia, before returning to Amarillo after the death of her husband. Each move brought a new adventure and a change in career. She was a secretary at Sun Oil and in the WTSU Athletic Department, where she was the first female in a collegiate sports pressbox, nationally. She was a teacher of Business and English in the Indiana and Colorado public school systems. She was a petroleum landman and the first female member of the American Association of Petroleum Landmen. She was a realtor, eventually owning her own company, Great Adventure Realty. She was the owner of the Center for Health and Beauty and a senior manager at both the Shaklee Corporation and the Vollara Corporation. Semi-retired, she spent recent years writing her memoirs and contributing to the Facebook group Postcards from the Panhandle. Her book, well underway, will need to be completed by others. She believed in the essential goodness and worth of all human beings and that everyone should have the opportunity to learn, grow, and achieve. Her years of spiritual study served to strengthen her beliefs, and her outspokenness on related issues was legendary. She focused her energies in later years on helping others achieve their goals. She wrote recently: “I have a wonderful life, being completely at peace, living a life of Love and Joy. I am 91 years of age now and am looking forward to many more years of service.”

A memorial service will be held in Amarillo on Sunday, April 27th, at 2:00 p.m. at the Amarillo Botanical Gardens, located at 1400 Streit Drive. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the High Plains Food Bank, the Downtown Women’s Center of Amarillo, or the James O. Hodges Scholarship at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Education.