ROBERT BLAKENSHIP
Sept. 20, 1922-March 25, 2006
FREMONT -- Robert Owen Blankenship, 83, died Saturday at the Veteran's Administrative Hospital in Durham.
The funeral will be held Tuesday at 11 a.m. in the chapel of Shackleford-Howell Funeral Home. The Rev. H. Powell Dew and The Rev. Bill Bradley will officiate. Interment will be in Elmwood Cemetery in Fremont.
Mr. Blankenship was born in Huntington, W.Va., to the late L.E. and Mary Jane Canterbury Blankenship. He attended the University of Illinois and was a real estate developer and a builder in Florida. Mr. Blankenship was a veteran of the United States Air Force, serving as a green card instructor pilot and a test pilot during WW II. He was one of the few remaining veterans who flew the "Hump" during WW II, and also the "Berlin Airlift".
He is survived by his wife, Audelia Aycock Blankenship; one sister, Olive Hager, of Hamlin, W.Va.; and several nieces and nephews.
The family will receive friends from 10 until 11 a.m. on Tuesday at Shackleford-Howell Funeral Home in Fremont.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Fremont Missionary Baptist Church, 300 East Carolina St., Fremont, N.C., 27830; or to the Gideons, P.O. Box 10093, Goldsboro, N.C., 27532.
Published in Obituaries on March 27, 2006 1:59 PM