Rocky Lamar McLean

Rocky McLean of Groesbeck passed away Tuesday, November 3, 2015 at Limestone Medical Center. Visitation will be held Thursday, November 5, 2015 from 6-8 PM in the Groesbeck Funeral Home Chapel. Funeral services will be held 2:00 PM on Friday, November 6, 2015 at the First Baptist Church of Groesbeck with Rev. Tracy Sims and Brother Richard Williams officiating. Burial will follow at Fort Parker Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Randy O'Bryant, Michael McGilvray, Richie Wilson, David Jones, Bubba Foley, Daniel Perry, Dwain Tatum, and Lee Garrett. Honorary pallbearers will be Steve Hunt, Mike Sutton, Braydin McLean, John K. Kilpatrick, and Pat Goodman. Rocky was born November 21, 1959 in Mexia to Spike Lamar McLean and Marjorie Janet White McLean, a household of three active boys of which he was the oldest. Rocky graduated from Groesbeck High School, Class of 1978. He was #21 on the Groesbeck Goat football team where he was an outstanding player. He made his Dad especially proud in his senior year game where Groesbeck beat Mexia with Rocky making the winning touchdown and kicking the extra point. Rocky and the boys grew up playing baseball as soon as they were old enough, and he played softball after he was out of school. He spent a lot of time with Terry Don and Angie Roach’s children, Robin and Randy Roach, playing baseball (and one memorable cold winter day snow sledding.) Dawn Wilson was also the next-door neighbor, friend and the sister he never had. And she was right there with him in his battle with cancer as a nursing friend. Rocky spent a lot of his life in the company of friend John K. Kilpatrick, who held him in his arms at the hospital when he was born, spent many hours watching him grow up and play ball, and many days camping and fishing with the McLean family and the Pat Goodman family. Rocky and his brothers spent many happy hours with their grandparents, and when old enough they enjoyed tromping through the woods with their guns at Old Union and at Papa McLean’s land at Honest Ridge. Rocky worked for Nucor in Jewett, retiring after twenty years. During his life, he loved camping, and fishing, and riding motorcycles and especially loved riding horses. While the boys were growing up, the family each had a motorcycle. All five of them would ride each Sunday afternoon to the grandparent McLean's at Honest Ridge. Except Mom Janet would not try to keep up with the guys who rode too adventurously for her. Rocky passed his love of riding horses on to his kids, putting them on a horse before they could walk. He enjoyed watching Rockcey ride with the Prime Time Express drill team and perform in rodeos, and also loved to go see her playing volleyball and softball. And he and Justin spent some good times especially in recent years riding around spot-lighting hogs. Family meant everything to Rocky, and one thing he really loved to do was cook and feed them. His specialties were ribs and steak, but also crockpot meals, and he believed in always cooking a lot to have enough for whoever showed up. He had a generous spirit, and wanted the family to eat with him and take leftovers home. Rocky was a man who dearly loved his family, and was a very loving son, brother, father and grandfather. He knew sorrow in losing his father to a long illness, but the hardest time of his life was when he lost his daughter, Jessica in a car wreck in 2003. Rocky was baptized as a young boy at the Church of Christ in Groesbeck, and he attended the Central Baptist Church in Thornton the past few years. Rocky was preceded in death by his father, Spike McLean; his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Buddy McLean and grandfathers, Olen White and Riesel Cox; and his daughter, Jessica McLean. He is survived by his mother, Janet McLean of Groesbeck; his grandmother, Edith Cox of Groesbeck; his son and daughter-in-law, Justin and Amanda McLean; daughter, Rockcey McLean; brothers and sisters-in-law, Darrell and Carol McLean and Flint and Denise McLean; grandson, Braydin McLean; granddaughters, Alyssa McDonald and Callie Mae McLean (all of these of Groesbeck); and his nieces and nephews, dear aunts and uncles, cousins and many more extended family. In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be made the American Cancer Society.