HAROLD DIXON, Sr., MELBOURNE

Harold Eugene Dixon, Sr. passed away peacefully on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, in the presence of two of his children, Penny Melendez and Chris Stevens. He was 73 years old. Perhaps, not coincidentally, his mother Dee was born on the same day of his death, on April 1 in the year, 1900. Dee would have been 108 years old. Harold was born in Florence, Alabama, the youngest of six children. He graduated from Oak Ridge High School in June of 1952. In May of 1953 he joined the United States Navy. In July of 1954 he married his first wife, Patricia Elizabeth Murphy.

While in the United States Navy, he served as an Aviation Electrician with AEWRON Three for four years including a 10 month tour in Guam in 1956 where he earned the China Service Medal. After being honorably discharged from the United States Navy in San Francisco in April of 1957, he spent the summer working for Lockheed Aviation on the assembly line. In the Fall of 1957 he returned to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In 1959 he joined the Tennessee Valley Authority as a Journeyman Electrician and the International Brother hood of Electrical Workers Union.

In 1964, upon the urging of his friends, he and his family moved to Merritt Island where he began his long career at the Kennedy Space Center.

In May of 1972 Harold graduated from Brevard Community College with an Associates of Science Degree in Electrical Technology after many years of attending night school. Patricia and Harold were divorced in May 1985. After a long courtship, Margaret and Harold were married in December of 1991. They have been happily married ever since.

Harold is survived by many people that he touched during his daily life including, but by no means an exhaustive list of, the boys and girls that he coached in baseball and softball leagues, the people who he met at the Merritt Island Picadilly, the cooks at Publix who always cooked fresh chicken livers for him, his work, his church, the friends of his family and their friends and their friends and all of those who were lucky enough to meet him along the way.

He is survived by his son, Gene Dixon and his wife Marika; his daughter, Jennifer Shipley, her husband, Ken and their children, Carley, Travis and Derrick; his daughter, Penny Melendez, her husband Michael and their children, Michael and Meaghan; and finally, but certainly not least his son, Chris Stevens, his wife Erica and their child Shelby.

Memorial services will be held on Saturday April 5, 2008 at 11 a.m. The location is Beach Funeral Home West Chapel, 4999 N. Wickham Road, Melbourne, FL 32940 (321) 751-6012. As many of you know, Harold was a colon cancer survivor. If you desire, instead of flowers make a donation to The Susan Cohan Kasdas Colon Cancer Foundation, The International Voice of Colon Cancer, 201 North Charles Street, Suite 2404, Baltimore, MD 21201 (410) 244-1778, To the memory of Harold Dixon and his wife Margaret.