Travis Emery Raiborn
March 23, 1953 – April 13, 2014
Travis Emery Raiborn, U.S. Navy Retired, B.S. Behavioral Science, CCAL, age 61, passed away Sunday, April 13, 2014. A private Celebration of Life Memorial will be held at a later date in Rusk. Hillier Funeral, Cremation, and Bereavement Specialists have been entrusted to his care.
Emery was the seventh child of Charles and Mattie Raiborn. He learned how to be a man from his father and got his resilience and empathy from his mother. After graduating from Conroe High School in 1972, Emery enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He served as a corpsman in the Vietnam War where he was wounded in action and thus was given full retirement in 1974. Due to these injuries he eventually became a 100% disabled veteran. Emery suffered many illnesses due to the war, but his mental perseverance kept him physically going.
Following the military, Emery moved back to Texas where he met and married the love of his life, Brenda Dulin. Together they raised a son, Travis Emery Dietrick Raiborn. Emery earned a B.S. in Behavioral Science from the University of Texas at Tyler. He worked at many facilities including children’s homes, state hospitals, family centers and earned his Child-Care Administrator’s License. Emery created a program to work with children who came from abusive backgrounds. He helped them learn life skills that allowed them to move in a more positive direction. Sometimes people were not happy to hear what Emery had to say, but he stood for the victims and did whatever he could to protect them.
He was described as a “Renaissance Man” and excelled at everything he did, whether he knew how to do it initially or not. Emery loved surfing, sports, fishing, hunting and camping; he was an outdoorsman in the truest sense.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial donations be made in Emery’s name to the Wounded Warrior Project at https://support.woundedwarriorproject.org or by mail to Wounded Warrior Project, P.O. Box 758517, Topeka, KS 66675.
Please share memories and tributes to Emery at www.hillierfuneralhome.com.
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