Vincent Groff Miller

Funeral services for Vincent Groff Miller, 87, Eudora, will be at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at Warren-McElwain Mortuary-Eudora Chapel. Military graveside services will follow in Eudora Cemetery.Mr. Miller died Friday, Aug. 22, 2008, at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.He was born Aug. 29, 1920, in Russell, the son of Vincent Hoover and Lela Zoe Tandy Miller. The family moved to Kansas City in 1922 when his father was named district manager for MONY Life Insurance Company. He was an active student at Wyandotte High School, where he was elected class president every year. He was a star player on the football and basketball teams. He attended Kansas City Junior College.Mr. Miller enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He rose to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant and was a pilot of a B-24 “The Liberator” bomber, flying missions over Germany. Following World War II, he lived in Sunflower Village before moving to Eudora in 1951. He was district sales representative for Sunshine Biscuit Company. After leaving Sunshine Biscuit, he became an agent and registered representative for the Mutual of Omaha Company. He also helped his son in the Miller Agency, Eudora.Mr. Miller was an active supporter of the Kansas City Youth for Christ. He served as Sunday school superintendent and Men’s Class teacher at Eudora Methodist Church. He was a founder of Lawrence Christian Business Men’s Committee and was instrumental in the summer Christian Revival Meetings conducted in downtown Lawrence during the 1960s. Every Sunday afternoon for 48 years, he visited the Lawrence and Douglas County jails to share the Gospel with inmates. He regularly volunteered to preach at prisons in Lansing and Leavenworth and was a participant in the man-to-man prison program. He was a former precinct committeeman for the Douglas County Republican Party. He enjoyed hunting and fishing.He married Ruth M. Whitton on May 16, 1942, in Kansas City. They shared 66 years of marriage. She survives, of the home.Other survivors include two daughters, April Lynn Bascom and husband Robert, Tucson, Ariz., and Karla Sue Pierce and husband Randall, Eudora; son, David Groff Miller and wife Marjorie, Eudora; and two grandsons, Brett A. Skinner and David W. Pierce.The family will greet friends from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. today at the Warren-McElwain Mortuary-Eudora Chapel.The family suggests memorials to Youth Front (formerly KC Youth for Christ), sent in care of the mortuary.Online condolences may be sent at warrenmcelwain.com, subject: Miller.