Arthur Young

Arthur Young Jr. Businessman and Stock Farmer of McCulloch County Dies at 86 years old Lifelong McCulloch County resident, businessman and stock farmer Arthur Young Jr. passed away on the longest day of the year, June 21, 2012. He was 86. "Junior", as he was known to the hundreds of friends, customers and the teenagers who worked after school at Young Oil Company in the fifty years that this business thrived, loved his family and the land he grew up on. Young served in the U.S. Army during World War II and he was assigned to General McArthur's General Headquarters in Japan immediately after the bombing of Hiroshima ended this conflict. As a farm boy from Texas, who had never traveled farther than a few miles from home, this experience was to have a profound impact on him and served as the basis for more than a few stories about the U.S. occupation of Japan and its effect on geopolitics. Even 70 years later, he reveled in his experience of being a part of the Greatest Generation. After being honorably discharged from the service, Junior came home to the farm in West Sweden, Texas where his Swedish immigrant grandfather, August Young, had first settled. While he loved working with livestock and had an innate ability to judge and enhance sheep, cattle and swine production, he also had a burning ambition to build a business that would provide security for his young family. In the early 1950's, with a little capital, skills learned from the "GI school" and a relentless work ethic, Young opened his first service station on Highway 87 in Brady, Texas and Young Oil Company began building a customer base that would spread throughout West Texas. This business grew from a small Cosden and then Fina service station to include multiple stations, butane, propane, gas and oil transport services, Farm Bureau products and fuel products for farmers and ranchers in the service areas. As his service station business grew, Arthur began to realize that what he loved doing, farming and ranching, was how he was going to "retire." After many years of 15 hour days, he quietly acquired all of the land in the original parcel of land that his grandfather had owned. In 1965 he began to slowly transition from businessman to stock farmer. After closing Young Oil Company, he continued this sheep and cattle enterprise until three years ago when an accident precluded his daily trip to work his beloved farm. Arthur Young Jr. was preceded in death by his wife Jo Ella and his parents Arthur Young Sr. and his wife Marie of Brady. He is survived by his brother Jaryl Young and his wife Sharon of Abilene, Texas, three children, Kathy Richardson and husband Bob of Austin, Arthur Gaylon Young and loved one Sandy Earle of Dallas, Jim Young and wife Dolores of Austin, two grandchildren; Christopher Young of Tokyo, Japan and Jazmyn Lynch and husband Ryan of Austin, great-grandson Asher Lynch of Austin and many cousins, nieces and nephews. Services will be held on Monday, June 25, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. at Heritage Funeral Home in Brady, Texas with burial to follow in Rest Haven Cemetery. Visitation will be Sunday evening from 6 to 8 p.m. at the funeral home.

Arthur Young

November 15, 1926 - June 21, 2012