Shelby Dill

ARIZONA CITY - Shelby Lee Dill, 85, of Arizona City, a longtime businessman and economic developer, died on Dec. 28, 2014, at home.

Visitation will begin at 9 a.m. Friday at J. Warren Funeral Services, Cole & Maud The Gardens Chapel in Casa Grande. The funeral will follow at 10, with Pastor Mark Chase officiating. Burial will be in Mountain View Cemetery.

Mr. Dill was born on April 6, 1929, in St. Joseph, Missouri, and was a son of Marion and Buelah (Shelby) Dill. He attended high school in Oregon, Missouri, where he competed on a conference championship football team as well as in track and boxing. He enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1947 and served on the USS Boxer and USS Princeton during the Korean War. He was honorably discharged in 1952 as a lieutenant junior grade. He received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Northwest Missouri State University. He also attended the Industrial Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma, the Air Force’s Air University for officer training and obtained real estate broker’s licenses in Arizona and Colorado.

He married Violet Rose on Aug. 6, 1950. He worked at Dill’s Plumbing and Heating in Worland, Wyoming, and the oil field near Worland. He was a Chamber of Commerce manager and worked on economic development in Evanston, Wyoming; Casa Grande; Reno, Nevada; Colorado Springs and Fort Collins, Colorado; and Cambridge, Ohio. He worked for the Arizona Office of Economic Planning and Development, was a real estate broker, owning Shelby & Associates, and ran a cattle drive from Wyoming to Missouri as a Jaycees project.

He boxed for a small part of his adult life and was a lieutenant colonel in the Civil Air Patrol in Casa Grande. Economic projects he worked on included an Olympic training center and PRCA Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Porsche and J.C. Penney in Reno and Francisco Grande, an industrial park, several businesses and Central Arizona College in the Casa Grande area. He enjoyed history and world travel and was western region commissioner for the Scottish Clan Donald in Nevada. He was a connoisseur of single malt scotch, a fly fisherman, a lover of Highland terriers, an avid gun collector, life member of the NRA and a devout Christian who loved his family.

Survivors include two sons, Scott J. and Curtiss Shelby Dill of Casa Grande; a brother, Larry S. Dill of St. Joseph; five grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife; a brother, Victor "Jack" Dill; and a great-grandchild, Dustin.