After 96 years and 9 months, Donald V. Carson was taken up in our Lord and has finished his race here on earth. Don died at the Golden Living Center in Rapid City on Thursday, January 22, 2015. Don was born in O'Neill Nebraska on May 2, 1918, and grew up in the hard times of the 30s and 40s as one of a large family of eight boys and two girls. He spent much of his boyhood days and school years living around Kadoka and Interior. He competed in regional track meets where he won several individual awards and attended high school for a time in Rapid City where he played center as a member of the 1935 Cobblers football team coached by South Dakota Hall of Fame coach Euclid "Euc" Cobb. After high school he worked as a cook in the Civilian Conservation Corps in the Black Hills. He married the love of his life Helen M. Shields on January 4th, 1940, at the Immaculate Conception Church in Rapid City. Together they raised five daughters Janice (Larry) Parker of Douglasville, GA, Karen (Don) Horan of Rapid City, Virginia (Ron) Coates of Rapid City, Cathy (Larry) Ostwald of Rapid City, and Carol (Bill) Dowling of Rapid City. Their union together produced the fruit of 14 grandchildren, 26 great grandchildren and 7 great great grandchildren. Don joined the Marines in 1945 and served as a truck driver until he was honorably discharged in June of 1946. He worked in numerous occupations over the years that include heavy equipment operation, driving truck for Buckingham Trucking Company, Robbins and Stearns Lumber Company and as an independent truck operator for several years. He got into the farming business in the early 1960s and worked the land as a custom farmer until his forced retirement due to health around 2003 at 85 years of age. He loved the outdoors and was an avid hunter and fly fisherman, often making his own flies and spending the end of a hard day listening to the sounds of fish feeding and the soothing sounds of the ripples on the waters of rapid creek. He will always be remembered foremost as a good husband and father and for the honesty of his dealings with others, for the integrity of his word, for the compassion he had for the unfortunate, and for the strength of his hand shake, for his love of animals, and for the wisdom about life he shared with so many of us. He was preceded in death by his father William Arthur (Art) Carson, his mother Nellie (Warthen) Carson, his wife of 66 years Helen (Shields) Carson, and eight brothers, Robert O. Carson of WA, Carol A. Carson, Kenneth (Kit) Carson, Harold B Carson, James R. Carson of CA, Leslie E. Carson of CA, Lyle G. Carson of NE, and two sisters, Helen M. Vanduck of WI, and Pauline M. Richards of Lead SD. Don will now be put to rest with his wife Helen at the Black Hills National Cemetery. Visitation will be on Sunday, Jan. 25, at Osheim & Schmidt Funeral Home from 5 until 7 p.m., with a 7 p.m. Christian wake service. Graveside services will be at 11 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 26, at Black Hills National Cemetery with military honors. A procession will leave the funeral home at 10:15 a.m. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed to the Wounded Warrior Program or St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.