Claude Lee Prater

GRAVESIDE SERVICE: 10:30 A.M. Tuesday, August 15, 2017, at Prater Ranch in Comanche County.

VISITATION: Family will receive friends at the funeral home from 5:30 P.M. until 7:30 P.M. on Monday, August 14, 2017.

MEMORIALS: In lieu of flowers family requests memorial be made to National Parkinson Foundation, 200 S.E. 1st Street, Suite 800, Miami, Florida 33131.

Claude Lee Prater, age 82, died at his home in Blanket, TX Sunday morning, August 13, 2017. He has suffered from Parkinson’s since 2004.

He was born August 1, 1935, in Sonora, Texas to Azalee Ivy and Claude Hamilton Prater. Claude attended school in Sonora and graduated in Lingleville, TX where he met and married his high school sweetheart LaRue Reed on May 12, 1954. At the time, he worked for the Carl Cahill Construction Company of Sonora.

They moved to Comanche in 1959 where he and his brother Duane formed a partnership. In 1964 he bought his brother’s share and began expanding to eventually include developments, gravel mining, landfills, road and highway construction and golf course construction. PAR Village was the first golf course he built, but there were many others, including Horseshoe Bay. He was Director of 1st Comanche Bank and Citizens State Bank in Gorman from 1974 – 1977. With the assistance of his son Bill Prater and son-in-law Mark Pirkle, the company, now known as Prater Equipment Co., Inc., grew to almost 100 employees but has consistently provided a livelihood for about 50 employees and their families for the last 40+ years.

Claude is known for his humor, generosity and deep love of his family as well as his love of the land. His favorite place to get away from work was his ranch, just driving around with the grandkids or hunting arrowheads.

Survivors include his wife, Larue; daughters: Connie Reed and her husband, Dennis; Pat Pirkle and her husband, Mark; Pam Tucker and her husband, Cordell and one son, Bill Prater and his wife, Sandi as well as his grandchildren, Neil, Chad, Laci, Holly, Shane, Heath, Justin, Clint, Becca, Eli Lyndsey and Kelsey and 13 great-grandchildren. Claude was preceded in death by his parents, Claude H. and Azalee Prater and his brothers, Duane Bishop Prater and Bobby Gene Prater.