Dempsey Lee Malaney, 84, of Perryton, Texas, died Saturday, October 24, 2026, at the family ranch on Wolf Creek. After 26 years as an Army officer and a second career in the defense industry, he came home to the Panhandle and spent the rest of his life looking after the county he grew up in, as a county commissioner, as its veterans service officer, and as a volunteer.
Dempsey was born on December 14, 1941, in Perryton, to Dempsey Elvene Malaney and Ruby Lee (Jackson) Malaney. His great-grandfather, Ben Jackson, was a buffalo hunter and government scout. His great-grandmother, Mollie Octavia (Wallace) Jackson, drove a mule and a horse for three weeks to join Ben in Dodge City. In 1886 they filed on a section of land along Wolf Creek, three years before the county was organized. That land became the family ranch, where his mother was born and where Dempsey and Kara made their home. His father, a World War II veteran, ran bakeries in Spearman and Perryton before ranching on Wolf Creek. His mother served Ochiltree County for more than four decades, first as a deputy and then for nine terms as its tax assessorcollector, until her death in 1992.
Dempsey grew up in Perryton, graduated from Perryton High School, and went on to West Texas State University, now West Texas A&M. He married Kara Bess Apple on March 28, 1964, and the next year earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial arts and secondary education. He later earned a master’s degree in psychology.
Dempsey joined the Army Reserve in 1962 and served with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 12th Special Forces Group (Airborne), before he was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1965. A pilot rated in both airplanes and helicopters, he flew in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970 with the 224th Aviation Battalion (Radio Research), the Army Security Agency unit whose aircraft located enemy radio transmitters from the air. He also served tours in South Korea and West Germany. He was a senior Army aviator who specialized in tactical intelligence and counterintelligence. From 1980 to 1982 he served at the Pentagon as the Defense Intelligence Agency’s representative to the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s National Military Command Center. He then took command of the 2nd Military Intelligence Battalion (Aerial Exploitation) in Pirmasens, West Germany, whose OV-1 Mohawks flew surveillance along the East German border.
After graduating from the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, Dempsey stayed on to join its faculty and direct the Army Operations Group, helping plan what was then a state-of-the-art war-gaming center. He was promoted to colonel in 1987 and left Carlisle in 1989 for his final assignment, at the Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Virginia, where he directed the office that set the Army’s requirements for communications, intelligence, and electronic warfare equipment.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, he was among the officers who pressed for wide-area battlefield surveillance, an effort that helped send the experimental Joint STARS radar aircraft to the Gulf War. He also served on a FEMA working group that set federal standards for high-frequency radio, which emergency agencies rely on when other communications fail. His decorations include two Legions of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, three Meritorious Service Medals, seven Air Medals, and the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm, and he was a qualified parachutist. He retired from active duty in 1991.
After the Army, Dempsey directed global operations on government contracts for a defense contractor, then consulted from the ranch and turned to public service at home. He served as Ochiltree County’s Precinct 4 commissioner from 2010 to 2018 and oversaw improvements across his precinct, including work at Lake Fryer, Wolf Creek Park, and the park’s Lobo restaurant. As the county’s veterans service officer until 2026, he helped local veterans get the benefits they had earned.
Outside public office, most of his volunteer time went to veterans, local history, and ham radio. A member of First Methodist Church, he was also active in American Legion Post 254 and the Llano Estacado Chapter 95 of the Special Forces Association in Amarillo. Special Forces reunions in Ruidoso, New Mexico, were a highlight of his year.
At the Museum of the Plains, he served on the board, led the security committee, helped maintain the building, and worked in the gift shop. The museum named him its Patron of the Year. Through the Texas Archeological Society, he worked on excavations along Wolf Creek, home to the Buried City, the remains of villages built there more than 600 years ago. He supported indigenous peoples, including the Kiowa Tribal Historic Preservation Office.
He often found artifacts on the family ranch as well. When the Society brought its annual field school to Wolf Creek in 2008 and 2009, he served as camp boss, looking after a campground of more than 400 volunteers from across Texas. A licensed ham radio operator, call sign K5DJI, he was a member of the Top of the Panhandle Amateur Radio Club. For his years of work in Ochiltree County, the Chamber of Commerce named him Citizen of the Year.
Technology was his work and his hobby. At home that meant radios, one of the first TRS-80 home computers, metal detectors, drones, security cameras, and an iPhone he upgraded far more often than he needed to.
Kara was his companion and partner in everything he did. She followed him through an Army career of many moves and adventures, and back in Perryton she supported his community work while doing her own. They remained sweethearts to the end. Wherever their children and grandchildren lived, they came home to the family ranch for summers and vacations, and he always had stories to tell them.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Dempsey E. Malaney and Ruby Lee (Jackson) Malaney.
He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Kara Bess (Apple) Malaney, of the family ranch; his children, Lisa Malaney (Peter Lau) of San Francisco, Lance Malaney (Heather Grove) of Jamestown, NC, and Bonnie Buckley (Bruce) of Sanford, FL; and his sister, Marilyn Sue Malaney of Houston. He was the proud grandfather of Maeve Malaney-Lau, Ruby Jude Grove-Malaney, Celia Malaney, and Claire Malaney-Lau; step-grandfather of Ashlee Palopoli (Michael), Taylor Buckley (Leslee), and Alec Buckley; and step-greatgrandfather of Mason and Ace Palopoli. He is also survived by a wide circle of family and friends.
A funeral service will be held at 1:00 p.m. Thursday, October 29, 2026, at First Methodist Church in Perryton, with the Rev. Mark Metzger officiating. Burial with military honors will follow at Ochiltree Cemetery. Arrangements are by Boxwell Brothers Funeral Home.
Pallbearers will be Chase Allison, Scott Brosowske, Nathan Ellzey, J.W. Hardy, David Heard, and Len Rossiter. Honorary pallbearers will be Dickie Childress, Gary Cook, Harold Courson, James Coverdale, Jerome Doerrie, Keith Good, Charles Kelly, Jim Lear, Earl McKinley, Louis Strovas, and Warren Switzer.
Memorials may be made to: First Methodist Church: P.O. Box 987, Perryton, TX 79070; Museum of the Plains: 1200 N. Main St., Perryton, TX 79070; Top of the Panhandle Amateur Radio Club (ToPARC): c/o Bobette Doerrie, 13928 CR B, Booker, TX 79005; or American Legion Post #254: P.O. Box 363, Perryton, TX 79070