Robert Lee Yoakum, 16 year old student of Rockdale high school and son of Mr. and Mrs. George Yoakum, was killed Monday afternoon between 2:30 and 3 p.m., when he came in contact with a live wire while moving a house at Caldwell.
Young Yoakum was working with his father and a brother, George Jr., on a house-moving job. The wire across the highway was believed to be dead at the time the house was being moved under it.
George Yoakum, Jr. was knocked out but not seriously injured and does not remember what happened, he said.
Funeral services for Robert Lee Yoakum were conducted from the Phillips and Luckey Chapel Tuesday at 3:30 p.m., with Rev. Howard Mitchell officiating and burial at Oak Lawn Cemetery. A huge crowd attended, attesting to the popularity of young Yoakum.
Pallbearers were fellow teammates of the 1948 football team: Walter Heckendorn, James Caffey, Henry Hall, Jack Crane, H.D. Maxwell Jr. and George Haley.
A star athlete and member of the FFA judging team that won second place this year, Robert Lee Yoakum was one of the favorite students of the entire Rockdale high school among both students and teachers. "He was always so willing, so able, and he will be sorely missed," in the words of so many of his friends in school.
He was active in all school activities, lettered in football, and played basketball and tennis. He was named a Lone Star Farmer at the State FFA convention at Houston last week, and during the year served the local chapter as reporter. He had always been very active in chapter work. He was an individual prize winner at the soil conservation contest at Taylor last fall.
Robert Lee Yoakum was born Nov. 2, 1931, near Rockdale, and would have been seventeen years old next November. He would have been a member of the R.H.S. senior class this coming term.
Besides his mother and father he leaves three brothers: Herbert, Vernon and George Yoakum Jr., and two sisters, Mrs. James Burch of Meridian and Mrs. John Yoakum of Rockdale, besides a number of other relatives. Rockdale Reporter, June 24, 1948
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