Debra Witt

Debra Kay Witt, Feb. 6, 1955 - October 5, 2014.

Debra Kay Witt, 59, of China Spring passed away Sunday, October 5, 2014. Funeral services will be 11 a.m. Friday, October 10, at Grace Gardens Funeral Home, 8220 Woodway Drive with a visitation to start an hour earlier at 10:00 a.m. Interment will follow at Oakwood Cemetery in Waco.

Debra was born to Katie Price McNure and Barney McNure in Swainsboro, Georgia, and raised in Adrian, Ga. where her father was a carpenter and her mother a textile mill worker. Debra was the first member of her family to go to college, graduating as an English major from North Georgia College in Dahlonega in 1977. Her father passed away the year before she graduated. She returned to Swainsboro, but after spending a year teaching high school there, she decided that she wanted to see the world. She then enlisted in the US Air Force as an airman basic. Shortly after beginning her basic training, Debra learned she had been accepted for officer training school. Upon completion of OTS she was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant and assigned to the 91st Strategic Missile Wing at Minot AFB in North Dakota where she served as a Minuteman ICBM maintenance officer. It was there that she met her future husband, Matthew Witt. They were married less than a year later. Debra then left the Air Force and together she and Matt moved to Schneckenhausen, W.Germany for their next assignment. For three years they traveled throughout Germany and Europe. Matt left the active duty AF in 1980, and they returned to the US for him to start law school in Austin. Debra re-entered the Air Force via the ready reserves and she and Matt both joined the 924th Fighter Wing at Bergstrom AFB in Austin. Debra served first as a Wing safety officer and then as the Wing’s Chief of Administration. She deployed with the Wing to S. Korea and she and Matt were able to explore a bit of Asia while they were there.

Following her husband’s graduation from law school, they had moved to Dallas and started a family, first with their daughter Laurel, then with their son Cameron. Debra left the AF Reserves as a Captain about two years after Cameron’s birth and devoted herself to raising her children and to supporting Matt in his law career. Debra raised her children with love and and with an old fashioned Southern sense of grace, gentility, and courtesy to others. Over time Debra and her family moved to Temple, Texas, then to Waco and to China Spring, Texas. When her children were in high school, Debra went back to school at McLennan Community College and trained as a medical transcriptionist, a field she worked in both in Waco and in Clifton. Debra was very proud of both of her children and was able to see Laurel graduate from Baylor in 2010. She also celebrated Cameron’s admission and attendance at the University of North Texas in Denton, as well as his recent admission to an advanced art program in Cedar Park, Tx. Debra loved her children and her husband with all of her heart and put everything she had into her family. Reading was a lifelong passion and Debra was rarely without a book at hand. An adventurer at heart, Debra loved to travel, both in the US and abroad. She was fascinated by history and was a member of the Historic Waco Foundation and volunteered at the Earle-Napier-Kinnard house. Debra’s great sense of style led to her serving as the decorating co-chair for the Waco Junior League’s Charity Ball and for Cattle Baron’s Ball. She was also active with the Temple Junior League. She was a member of the Western Heights Baptist Church in Waco.

Debra was predeceased by her parents as well as by her sister, Patsy Morris.

She is survived by her husband Matthew, her children Laurel and Cameron, and by her brother Jimmy.