SAYRE, David L.

SAYRE, LOOMIS, EVANS, HURD, GRIFFIN, BALDER, HOWARD, SHADLE

Posted By: Lynette Edsall (email)
Date: 3/11/2008 at 11:00:05

David L. Sayre, 88, of Cherokee passed away Friday, March 7, 2008, at Careage Hills in Cherokee.

Services will be 10:30 a.m. Monday at Memorial Presbyterian Church in Cherokee, with the Rev. Ethan Sayler officiating. Burial will be in Oak Hill Cemetery. There will be a family prayer service at 10:15 a.m. Monday at the church. Visitation will be 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. today, with the family present 6:30 to 8 p.m., at Boothby Funeral Home in Cherokee.

David was born July 10, 1919, in Des Moines, to Herbert A. and Ethel (Loomis) Sayre. He graduated from Ames High School in 1937. He received his bachelor of arts degree from the University of Iowa in 1941 and his juris doctor from the University of Iowa in December 1942. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant as a communications officer. He served on active duty with the 303rd Airborne Squadron, mostly in the South Pacific, New Guinea, Polynesia and Korea. He also served as a judge advocate in Seoul, Korea, before returning to the U.S. in 1946. He taught at the College of Law at the University of Chicago for one year, moving to Cherokee in 1947. He joined Lew McDonald in the practice of law in Cherokee in 1947. He later worked with Jim McDonald, then with George Wittgraf and Dan Meloy. He retired in 1997 after practicing for more than 50 years.

He was married to Betty Evans on Aug. 7, 1943, in Spokane, Wash.

He was very active in community affairs. He was a member and an elder of Memorial Presbyterian Church, where he served as treasurer of the Presbyterian Camp. He was a 50-year member of the Speculative Lodge 307 A.F. & A.M., the York Rite and Scottish Rite bodies, the Abu Bekr Shrine Temple and the Shrine Brass Band. He was a member of the Iowa State and Cherokee County Bar Association, served on the tax committee of the Iowa Bar Association for 37 years, chairing it for more than two years. He served on the Iowa Supreme Court Grievance Commission and the Board of Governors of the Iowa State Bar Association, the Supreme Court Commission on Continuing Legal Education. He was active in promoting economic development for Cherokee, receiving special recognition in this area. He was named Cherokee Citizen of the Year in 1997. He had served many years as a director of Central Trust and Savings Bank.

He is survived by a daughter and her husband, Mary Ellen and Dr. Marvin Hurd of West Des Moines, grandchildren, Mary and her husband, Kyle Griffin of Springfield, Mo., great-grandchildren, Noelle and Nicholas Griffin, Ruth Ann Hurd of Utsunomiya, Japan, Elizabeth and her husband, Nathan Balder of Ida Grove, Iowa, and a great-grandson due in April, David Hurd and his wife, Danielle; a daughter, Jane Sayre of Oskaloosa, Iowa; a daughter, Patty Howard of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and grandchildren, Laura of Iowa City, Iowa, Nathan and his fiancee of Minneapolis and Steven of San Francisco, Calif.; a son and his wife, John and Linda Sayre of Columbia, Md., and grandchildren, Patrick of College Park, Md., and David of Columbia, Md.

He was preceded in death by his parents; his wife, Betty on Feb. 22, 1995; and his sister, Laura Shadle.

The family requests that memorials be made to Memorial Presbyterian Church.