Obituary for Robert R. Cliburn

Unfortunately, my father died on October 3, 2022. He was a good man, husband, and father who went through a lot in his too-short life. His obituary is below. 

Funeral service for Robert Rynearson Cliburn, 69 of Lawton, will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 10, 2022 at Lawton Ritter Gray Funeral Home Chapel with Dr. Bill Schneider, Senior Pastor of St. John Lutheran Church, officiating.

Mr. Cliburn passed away on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022 at OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City.
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Viewing will be held on Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022 from noon until 8 p.m.

Robert was born Sept. 19, 1953 in Columbia, Miss., the son of a Methodist minister. After spending his early years living in rural Mississippi communities, Robert was the happiest 14-year-old alive when his father moved the family to Fort Walton Beach, Fla. There, he spent his formative years living and working along Destin’s white sandy beaches, graduating from Choctawhatchee High School in 1972. A year later, he met and fell for Tamara Weeks, but he was beaten to the punch when his friend asked her out first. In 1974, he reluctantly served as best man as that friend and Tamara were married. Shortly after the wedding, Robert joined the U.S. Army and was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, as an infantryman. When the Army sent him to West Germany, he answered the call for volunteers to serve on Pershing nuclear missile sites, obtaining a secondary military occupational specialty as well as lifelong friends and memories.

He was discharged from the Army in 1978 and returned to the Florida Panhandle to attend Pensacola’s University of West Florida. Shortly thereafter, he learned Tamara’s marriage was ending and contacted his long-time crush. Within two years, he graduated with a Bachelor of Business Management degree and received the greatest birthday gift of his life, marrying Tamara on Sept. 19, 1980. In 1982, Robert and Tamara welcomed their first child, and Robert was hired by the U.S. Treasury Department as a Revenue Officer. That job first sent him back to Mississippi, where he and Tamara had their second child, before returning him to Florida in 1984. In 1986, the job moved the family to Lawton, where Robert spent the next 36 years of his life, finding a new home and raising his two boys as first-generation Sooners.

Robert was a youth baseball coach for many years and loved nothing more than driving through the neighborhood to ferry players to practice or games. He recognized the impression youth coaches had on children and spent many hours successfully petitioning the City of Lawton to rename the park behind Park Lane Elementary School in honor of another long-time volunteer coach. Aside from honoring its namesake, Ray Henderson Park remains today as a silent testament to Robert’s appreciation of others over self.

In 1993, seizures forced him to retire from the Treasury Department and be discharged from the U.S. Army Reserves with the rank of sergeant first class. In 2000, he was selected as a research subject for a George Washington University long-term study on the effects of Gulf War-era accelerated vaccine schedules. In 2004, he organized the first large reunion of Pershing veterans since the program was decommissioned in 1991, and he remained in touch with those brothers-in-arms the rest of his life. He was overjoyed when his alma mater launched a football team in 2016, and he was in the stands cheering the Argonauts on when they won the NCAA Division II national championship in 2019.

Though medical challenges dominated much of the rest of his life, he always expressed a positive attitude — even after being diagnosed with cancer in 2003. Many times over the years, doctors delivered grave prognoses, but Robert always pulled through. He loved football, dogs, his beloved wife and sons, and playing with his grandchildren. He was a member of St. John Lutheran Church in Lawton, where he was honored to serve as an elder. He was kind and compassionate, and his dry humor and understated persona will be sorely missed.

Robert is survived by his wife of 42 years, Tamara, of the home; a son and daughter-in-law, Justin and Deanne, Oklahoma City; a granddaughter, Kayla Tiernan, Anchorage, Alaska; a man he always considered his third son, Metric Dunnings, Mesquite, Texas; a brother and sister-in-law, Charles and Madelin, Tallahassee, Fla., a sister and brother-in-law, Cecilia and Kevin Steiger, Tallahassee, Fla., and numerous cousins, nieces, and nephews.

He was predeceased by his parents, a son, Russell, and two grandchildren, Emma and Kristo.