Luther H. McCrea III was an adventurer, a traveler, and a lover of family and friends.  He was born on April 10, 1936 in Cisco, TX to his Norwegian mother, Ella Bina Oberson McCrea, and his Scots father, Luther H. McCrea, Jr.  He grew up in Cisco and became a supremely confident young man who graduated Cisco High School and went off to college at age 16.  Realizing he had some growing up to do, he joined the Navy and saw the world from an aircraft carrier as an electronics technician.

He returned to Cisco and attended CJC to earn basic credits, where he met his future wife, C. Jeanette McCrary.  They married in March, 1958 while they were both attending the University of North Texas in Denton, TX.  Luther graduated from UNT with a BA, then went to UT-Austin for an MBA, graduating in 1961.  After working in the Trust Dept of an Austin bank for three years, Luther became a Special Agent with the U.S. Treasury Dept-IRS.  He transferrred to U.S. Customs in 1971, where he found the perfect slot for himself.  Because of his accounting background, Luther became an expert at Customs as an international investigator in trade cases involving 'dumping' products into the U.S. economy at a lower rate than in their own country.  He took teams of investigators on dumping cases to Mexico, Germany and France.  He also traveled all over the U.S. as a senior agent on specialized corporate cases. Luther had many interesting stories from those years at Customs.

Luther retired from U.S. Customs-Dallas office as a GS-13 at a young fifty years of age in 1986.  By January 1987 he was the CEO of a family corporation, McCrea Exploration Company, and became a successful 'oil man' doing heads-up drilling in Stephens County, TX on family property.  He drilled into a Mississippian reef that year and completed a number of producing wells.

Looking for new areas to use his new found talents, he and his fellow cousins/corporate members created another family business, TMEC, to explore and develop family properties in Andrews County, TX.  His dream until the day he died was to see the completion of a successful well on that property.  Although that dream was not realized in his lifetime, he had already turned the development over to his daughter, Kim Collins, and other members of the fourth generation of McCreas, believing it could be accomplished.

Luther and Jeanette always loved traveling and through his work or just for the love of it had traveled extensively in Mexico, Europe, South America and the entire United States,  They started cruising in 1998 and saw the Mediterranean on a three week cruise starting in Istanbul, Turkey and ending in Rome, Italy.  On various cruises, they have been around the entire continent of South America.  Luther always read extensively about any destination before going there and was most interested in the geology, history and economic factors of any place he visited.

Every month he read cover-to-cover Smithsonian magazine, National Geographic, and Consumer Report to learn about new possible destinations.  He was never without a book he was reading, usually about history or geology.  In recent years, because of reduced mobility, he had turned to TV travel shows in order to travel vicariously.  There were few topics that he could not discuss intelligently and informatively.  He was such a lover of knowledge that he was always informing or mentoring someone.  His sharp wit was also well known to those who sought his companionship.

Luther is predeceased by his mother and father, and his only son, Chris McCrea.

He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Jeanette McCrea, his daughter Kimberly Bina McCrea Collins, son-in-law Charles Collins and four grandchildren.  Kim and Charles' children are: Ashley Bina Collins and Miles Taylor Collins.  Chris' twin sons are Chris and Gerry Davis of New York state.  HIs sister is Mary McCrea Woodruff (Ed) and his brother-in-law is Don McCrary.  Nieces and nephews are Mark Trapp, Georgia Trapp Nolan, Bob McCrary and Starr McCrary.  There are three surviving cousins of the original large group who created and helped make successful the family corporations.  Three remaining cousins and the fourth generation of McCrea descendants continue working to make the dream come true.

Visitation for Luther will be held at DeBerry Funeral Directors at 2025 W .University Dr on Wednesday, August 16, 2017 between 5:00-7:00 pm.  Services are to be held Thursday, August 17, 2017 at Southmont Baptist Church, 2801 Pennsylvania, Denton, TX at 1:00 pm.  The Reverend Jeff Dooley will be officiating.

There will be a luncheon at the church preceding the service for family and close friends.

Luther will be cremated and his ashes placed in the family plot in Cisco, TX at a later date, where both his mother and father are buried.