Pat McClung's Obituary
MCCLUNG PAT was born in Tillman County, Oklahoma on October 11, 1923. Enlisting in the U.S. Navy the very day of the attack on Pearl Harbor, he served on board ship in the South Pacific during World War II. After returning from the war, he attended Oklahoma University, completing an undergraduate degree and then law degree in 1949. He started his practice in corporate law in Fort Worth the same year, and by the early 1950’s was in the private practice of law, spending the remainder of his legal career in Dallas. McClung was appointed to his first judicial bench in 1975 by Texas Gov. Dolph Brisco, and served for many years as Judge of Dallas County Juvenile Court #2, then the 305th District Court. In 1984, he was elected Justice of Texas’s 5th District Court of Appeals, where he served until his retirement in 1990. While serving in the juvenile court system, he was an outspoken advocate for the halfway house program of the Texas Youth Council as an important “second chance” for troubled youth. He was also passionate about maintaining an elected judiciary in Texas to “give voters the choice” to elect judges and justices. A loving son, brother, father and grandfather, he was best known for his quick wit, storytelling and keen curiosity, leading those who knew him well to believe that he knew just about everything about everything. He had a love of the law, justice and politics, proud to be a public servant. His attention to detail, evident in his esteemed career, carried over into his personal life. He spent his leisure time over the years rebuilding car engines, learning how to program the first computers, building and flying experimental airplanes and finally, spending time in his shop building with precision machine work, building miniature working steam engines and turbines. He was the father of four children, grandfather to seven and great-grandfather to six.
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