Deborah McCoy

“You’re the best.” A simple phrase she said often that can also be used to describe the life of Deborah Kay McCoy. Born on October 13, 1955, in Texas to parents, David and Magdalena Hill, who went on to settle the family in Magnolia, Arkansas. She grew up in the shade of pecan trees, their branches climbed with her brother, David, to launch Barbies and GI Joes onto unsuspecting cars below, and the glow of Friday night lights as the Drum Major of her high school’s marching band. As comfortable with a paint brush as she was playing the flute, she went on to major in Marketing at Southern Arkansas University. A desire to beautify the world around her was reflected in all parts of her life – from her careers in jewelry and department stores throughout the next decades to hand-smocked dresses and coordinating bows for her daughters to elaborate flower beds around her yard and homemade birthday Oreo cheesecakes. Moving back to Texas in the early 1980s, to the home she would live in for the next forty years, brought her closer to her beloved Dallas Cowboys that she would root on every Sunday they played, red nails flashing and rings sparkling as she cheered and clapped. This type of fierce devotion and support was given to her loved ones freely and generously and she received it in return. She remarried in 2001 in Las Vegas to her husband, James, a trip to the desert where she finally got to ride in a PT Cruiser and visit City Hall for a forgotten marriage certificate. When the Multiple Sclerosis diagnosed in her teens finally took her ability to walk, she responded not with platitudes but by zooming around the house in her scooter – leaving plumes of drywall in her wake as she took corners a little too close, belly laughing all the while. When her own fingers could no longer open the clasps to her necklaces and bracelets, her husband James was always there to secure them. And he would remain by her side through all the days of their almost quarter of a century together – whether driving to see longhorns in nearby pastures or lunch dates at their favorite spots or yelling at squirrels on their birdfeeders. And each of her daughters, Erin and Alexandra, grew up knowing that it was her strength and love that propelled them forward in their own independence but their roots would always lead back to her and East Texas. And when her grandchildren, Cooper and Sophia, came to fill the house with laughter and shrieks of “Dee!,” she dutifully held the toys they handed her and let them beep the horn on her scooter, laughing and smiling. This laughter was more powerful than the disease that eventually took her – to laugh in the face of pain and an illness that constantly crept closer is a rare bravery. And she met every single one of those days with her own warpaint of glitter and sparkle and grit. She was the best. Deborah is survived by her husband, James M. McCoy, two daughters and a daughter- in-law and son-in-law, Erin Elizabeth Wommack (Rachel) of Silver Spring, MD; Alexandra Wommack Cheramie (Patrick) of New Orleans, LA and her grandchildren, Cooper James Cheramie and Sophia Kay Cheramie. She also leaves many other loved ones and friends who will dearly miss her. In lieu of flowers, please considering making a contribution in her memory to the MS Society here.

Deborah McCoy

October 13, 1955 - January 20, 2025