Donnie Ray Cartlidge

Don Cartlidge was born in Start, Louisiana in 1937 to Bessie Louise (Nolan) and Claude Everett Cartlidge. In grade school Don was the Tri-State area winner of a national spelling bee which earned him a trip to Washington, D.C. for the national competition, where he got to meet and shake the hand of then-Senator Lyndon Baines Joshnson. Don loved to listen to baseball on the radio, keeping the volume low at night when he was supposed to be asleep. When Don was young, the family moved to a Continental Carbon camp outside of Dumas, Texas, and then to Eunice, New Mexico where Don graduated high school as valedictorian.

 While attending New Mexico State University (NMSU) in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Don met his future wife, Sue Catherine Abbott, at the Baptist Student Union. They were married in 1958 at First Baptist Church, Las Cruces. As a mathematics major in the 1950s, Don was perfectly poised to enter the brand-new discipline of computer science. During his time at NMSU, he participated in a co-op program with General Electric at White Sands Missile Range where he got his first experience programming computers, which at that time was done with a spool of wire and wire cutters. Don graduated with a master’s degree in mathematics from NMSU in 1962.

 Working in computer science in the early 1960s provided Don with many exciting opportunities, including time at Mission Control in Houston, Lockheed Space Systems, and LTV Aerospace in Oahu, Hawaii. The family, which now included son Tim, daughter Cherese, and son Keith, settled back in Las Cruces in 1970 when Don became director of the NMSU Computer Center, a position he held until 1980. Semi-retirement commenced at that point, with Don eventually lecturing as a Computer Science professor until full retirement in the early 1990s. Don and Sue then traveled far and wide with their fifth wheel RV, going literally from coast to coast. They found great community in their final RV years, spending their summers at the Vallecito Reservoir in the San Juan mountains of Colorado, and their winters in Donna, Texas, part of the McAllen metropolitan area in far south Texas. They finally settled in Fort Worth, Texas to be near family, eventually welcoming three generations, with five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, and the fourth due this December. Don loved to sing anywhere, but especially in church choirs, and he even served as the worship leader at their church in Donna, and at their retirement community in Fort Worth. But Don loved his family most of all, and would do whatever he could to help them out whenever a need arose. His favorite pastime was playing games and singing at family gatherings, and in quiter moments, working the New York Times crossword puzzle, always using an ink pen.

 He passed peacefully into the arms of his savior Jesus on September 6, 2026, with his wife Sue, son Keith, and daughter in law Stacey at his side. Don was preceded in death by his younger brother Ralph, mother Bess, and father Everett; and survived by wife of 68 years, Sue; his children, Tim (Lili), Cherese, and Keith (Stacey); grandchildren Kat (George), Justin (Christine), Kevin (Belinda), Tommy, and Julie; and great grandchildren Caleb, Gavin, and Ryan; brother Steve (Linda); niece Jennifer (Rusty); and great niece Leila.