Dale Lee Hinton

What can you even say? Is there enough ink and paper to tell the story of Dale Lee Hinton? The basics are he was born on August 8 th , 1968 and passed away on January 21 st , 2025 but there’s so much more in the dash though, so let’s talk about that instead. Dale was born to be an adventure to be experienced. He was too mischievous to have a boring life. Even as a child he was always looking for the next adventure, from going tarantula hunting with Richie Grissom out on Hacienda to jumping on Richie’s dirt bike right after his mom and dad explicitly told him he was not to do. He would have gotten away with it if he wasn’t driving down Moss and passed his parents on the road. He might have gotten in a little trouble as a child. Dale was always picking on his little brother, even daring his brother Ricky to ride his big wheel off of the roof of their house, which he did do. When Ricky was 4 years old, Dale had stuck bricks on top of the cinder block fence then called Ricky over and pushed them on top of his head. Ricky eventually got him back when Dale was in the top bunk bed that they shared. Dale was leaning over and spitting on Ricky while he was reading a book. Dale thought he was being slick and kept doing it. Ricky ended up chewing a big wad of gum up and the next time Dale did it, Ricky grabbed that wad of gum and slapped it right into Dale’s armpit. Dale followed the law of reflex and shut his arm real fast. Anyone who knows Dale knows he is hairy. Well, that armpit wasn’t anymore because they had to cut the hair off to get the gum out. He couldn’t even open his arm. They had to cut a little out at a time. Dale always had a lot of friends and loved being around his family. Before he had any children of his own, he got to be an uncle to two nephews that he adored. One of them couldn’t say “Dale” so he called him “Uncle Dick”. When he was 23 he married Krystal Roberts. In 1992, they had their first child. They waited to see what the gender was until she was born. All of the family was waiting patiently in the waiting room to find out if they were having a boy or a girl. As soon as Taijia Danielle was born, Dale grabbed her and took off down the hall to go show her off to all of the family and let them know she was a girl! He was running down the hall with nurses chasing him. He got to the door of the waiting room and held her out the door just as the nurses got there and grabbed him and Taijia and took them back to the delivery room. He might have gotten in a little trouble over that but he didn’t care. He was too proud of that baby girl! Dale loved being a dad so much that he just had to have another one. This baby girl came blaring into the world less than a year later and less than 8 minutes after them getting put in the delivery room. Dale put on his scrubs and sat down and picked up the phone to call his parents and let them know they were at the hospital when the nurse said “oh no dad, you don’t have time for that. You are about to be having a baby!” Seven minutes later, Kacee Leigh was born. Dale had his Irish twins. He had his “Pinkie T” (Taijia) and his little Ju Ju (Kacee). He adored being a dad to them and doted on them. He would push them around the pool in the floaties all day. He wanted them to be little water dogs just like him. He would take them camping in a tent at the lake from the time they were 4 months old. A few years later, in 1998, he decided he wanted to try one more time for a boy to carry his name on. Boy, what a surprise when he ended up with twin boys! Tristin Dale and Christian Dale (yes, he named them both Dale after himself). He was so proud of them. Dale adored all of his children, nieces, nephews, cousins and friends children. And for some reason, he loved biting on little chunky baby arms and legs. There are so many pictures of him doing this until they would just crack up! All of the kids loved being around him. Taijia, said that he finally talked her into going hunting with him. When they finally spotted a deer after sitting in the blind all day, he “missed” his shot but she said that she knew he did it on purpose and he tried to deny it but eventually admitted that he missed it because he was afraid it would break her heart. She said “it would”. Luis, Taijia’s husband, just loved how good he was to their kids. He had a game he would play with Kaven where they would try to be the one to jump out and scare the other one first. Then when Sailor was trying to learn to ride a bike, Dale went over to help him teach her to ride the bike. Luis said, “For Indigo, it was the battle for her to let him hold her, she finally caved in one day and it brought the biggest smile to his face.” Kaven’s favorite memory of his Pawpaw is “Me and Pawpaw would scare each other every time we saw each other and I miss that” Sailor’s favorite memory was “I would give him drawing lessons to PawPaw and play shop. Also, I caught a fish with him” Indigo would run into Dale’s arms every time that Dale would go to Taijia’s house just to steal his Taco Villa drink. Kacee, on the other hand was his little hunting buddy. She would go hunting with him any chance she got. She also knew how much he loved poker so she had a nice poker table made for him. Also, anytime it would get windy, they were ready to go off chasing tornados. Every time Dale was around her, he would kiss her on the forehead. She said it felt like a security blanket when he did it. Skylah’s favorite memory was in Huddle House. Never Gonna Give You Up was playing on the speaker and she told her PawPaw she knew every word to that song. He told her “no way”. When the beat dropped Skylah started singing every word. It shocked him so much that he started laughing so hard that his drink came out of his nose and he had to run to the bathroom. Tristin and Dale would always play golf together, as well as hunt and fish but he really loved to golf every chance he got. While playing golf with Tristin, Christian and their friends, he would always test them on how well they knew classic rock songs. Dale would make all of them laugh while golfing because every time he would hit a bad shot he would just burst out cursing at himself and calling himself names. One of Christian’s favorite memory of his dad is when Tristin was driving Dale’s boat and Dale told him to slow down. Instead of slowing down he just stopped the boat completely and Dale’s friend went flying up towards the front of the boat and fell over the ice chest. When he got his motorcycle, he would go pick up his sister Vicki every week and take her riding because she loved riding with him. One day they were cruising and a big bug hit Dale in the face so hard that his head bounced back and he almost head butted her. He yelled “A bug hit me!” and when he turned around he had bug guts all over his head. Vicki said that they both got to laughing so hard, people were just staring at them. She said they were crying from laughing so hard! Dale’s favorite place to be was their ranch. He loved to take his friends and family to the ranch. One time he was there with all of his family and they were playing hide and seek. His sister Carrie, her husband Dennis and Dale were on the same team. They would run and hide but because Carrie always fed the cows tortillas, they loved her and would follow her around. They couldn’t get a good hiding spot and kept getting caught because the cows would give them away. In December of 2006, Dale got married to his second wife, Kim Welch, and inherited 3 more kids to love and be proud of. Blake, Haleigh and Courtney. Blake’s favorite memory with Dale is getting his first tattoo with Dale at 18 and staying up all night with him hunting until he shot his first deer. He also has some epic memories with Dale but over anything, he always knew that if he needed Dale, he was there for him no matter what it was and was never scared of anything. Haleigh’s favorite memories will always be at the ranch. The hours and hours of sitting and fishing. How excited he would get every single time someone caught a fish. Taking them up on the hill to look at the stars and sitting by the fire for hours laughing. One trip Jordyn and Colton, Haleigh’s children, went off exploring so Dale, Jacob (Haleigh’s husband) and Baleigh (Haleigh’s daughter) made a plan to ride out quietly and play coyote noises to scare them. They played the noises while watching Jordyn and Colton run for their lives all the way back to the cabin. Dale, Baleigh, and Jacob came back with tears rolling down their faces from laughing so hard. Courtney’s favorite memories with Dale are him taking them out on the boat when they were kids and him taking them tubing and Dale just laughing and having so much fun watching all of them. She also has great memories of Dale teaching them and Braxton how to fish. There are so many more stories that I could write from people who have written me but they all boil down to the same thing. Everyone that I’ve talked to about him to get stories to share all said the same things. Everyone said they loved that he always hugged them before they left. He always treated his friends like they were family. He was a really great friend to them and he is going to be missed so much. Dale leaves behind his children: Taijia (Luis) Sumaya, Kacee McKinley, Tristin McKinley, Christian McKinley, Blake Debusk, Haleigh (Jacob) Crumpton, and Courtney (William) Ownby. He is also survived by his grandchildren: Skylah McKinley, Kaven Sumaya, Sailor Sumaya, Indigo Sumaya, Jordyn Crumpton, Baleigh Crumpton, Colton Crumpton, Braxton Ownby, Paisley Ownby, and Bella Debusk. Dale was a loving and protective brother to his siblings: Vicki (Jerry) Wells, Ricky Hinton and Carrie Shaver. He also leaves behind multiple nieces, nephews, cousins, family members and friends who were considered family. Dale will be met with open arms by his grandparents Orbery and Carrie Stamps, Clifford Hinton, Lora Bolin, Claude and Margarete McKinley; Parents Phyllis and Clyde Hinton; Brother-in-Law Dennis Shaver and multiple family and friends. Visitation will be held on Monday, January 27 th from 2-8pm at American Heritage Funeral Home, 4100 FM1788, Midland, TX 79701 Service will be held at 2pm on Tuesday, January 28 th at Crossroads Church, 6901 TX191, Odessa, TX 79762

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Dale Lee Hinton

August 8, 1968 - January 21, 2025