Richard McFarland Albertson

Dr. Richard McFarland Albertson died July 2, 2018, succumbing to an 18-month fight with brain cancer. Albertson joins his parents, Clarence and Barbara, in death, leaving behind his wife of 30 years, Devera; three sons, Aaron, Brennon and Evan; and daughter-in-law, Sarah. Richard was 53.

A memorial service is scheduled for Friday, July 6, at 10:00 A.M. at the Velma Baptist Church with Pastor Jeremy Higle officiating. Inurnment will follow at a later date in Friona, Texas. Arrangements have been entrusted to Whitt Funeral Home.

Richard was born the second child to Clarence and Barbara on November 16, 1964 in Clovis, New Mexico. Richard’s two siblings, an older-sister Rebekah and younger-brother Jonathan, live in Florida and Arizona, respectively.

Richard and Devera met at West Texas State University, in the fall of 1985, when Richard was playing linebacker for the Buffalo’s football team alongside lifelong friend Greg Hein. Devera was studying accounting.

A loving father and leader of his household, Richard was an assistant high school football coach and health teacher in Muleshoe, Texas, when he and Devera entered parenthood in the fall of 1991. Citing a desire to better financially provide for his wife and eventual three children, Richard took and passed entrance exams to both law and medical school before ultimately deciding to attend Texas Tech University’s School of Medicine. Throughout the stress of a toddler and the birth of two more sons in 1994 and 1997, Richard graduated with honors from the school before completing his medical residency in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

After his residency, Richard and his family moved to Duncan, Oklahoma, where he practiced general and vascular surgery for 14 years. According to friend and colleague, Dr. Che’ Miller, Richard operated and conducted his everyday life underneath a strong and moral personal code.

In the spring of 2004, returning from a family vacation at the nation’s capital, Richard found and saved an orphaned calf while traveling the easement to his property. Adopting the aptly named “D.C.” jettisoned him and his family into the world of farming, thus creating the entity DABER Land and Cattle before existing as a co-owner and operator of Circle-7 Farms alongside his friend Jim Bethany.

The move was a throwback to Albertson’s childhood where he worked through his pre-teen summers from age 12 onward under Houston businessman and farmer “Mr. Steve.” Driving truck, trailer and tractor for the man, Albertson became the embodiment of a hard-working man, and that followed into his medical practice where he could be found wearing his crepe-soled, eventually ostrich-skinned cowboy boots across the hospital and clinic, even including the operating room.

Richard will be remembered as a loving, devoted and serving husband; a strong and hardworking leader and father who was willing to put his sons before himself; and an honorable and God-fearing Christian man.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Velma Baptist Church Building Fund.

Online condolences may be made to the family at www.whittfh.com .

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