MOUNT PLEASANT, TEXAS - Robert Swanson Smitherman, 92, of Mount Pleasant, Texas, died Friday, July 15, 2011 at his residence. Funeral services are set for 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at First Presbyterian Church, with burial in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery at 9:00 AM.

Mr. Smitherman was born November 6, 1918 in Liberty Hill, La. to Cornelius Boyd Smitherman and Sarah Hannah Swanson. His family moved to the Broadmoor area in Shreveport, LA in 1931. He graduated from C. E. Byrd High School in 1935 and attended Centenary College until transferring to LSU before World War II. He was a P-38 pilot in the US Army Air Corp until the end of the war. After the war he completed LSU with a degree in electrical engineering in 1947. He then worked for Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO) as an electrical engineer until his retirement in Mt. Pleasant, TX. He continued his military service in the US Air Force Reserve and retired as a major. His love of golf and his golf partners continued until the week of his death.

He was preceded in death by his parents, first and second wives Barbara Beuhler Smitherman and Betty Hoffman Smitherman, brother Harold Smitherman, and grandchildren Benjamin Boussert and Shawn Stuekerjuergen.

He is survived by two daughters and a son-in-law, Gayle Smitherman, and Anne and Chris Boussert; three grandchildren, Kristin and Corey Granger and Joel Boussert and three great-grandchildren; and two brothers and sisters-in-law Charles and Joy Smitherman and David and Nancy Smitherman.