Carolyn Virginia Banks Crump

Carolyn Virginia Banks Crump, 73, of Blytheville, passed away Saturday, Oct. 22, 2022, at St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro.

Carolyn was born in Blytheville at the old Walls Hospital, and was saved and baptized at the age of 11 in March of 1960 at New Liberty Baptist Church in Blytheville. She was a 1966 graduate of Blytheville High School. Carolyn was always so very proud of her husband’s military career in the United States Navy from which he retired in 1994, and her husband’s service as a church deacon. She was a devoted wife, as you could tell by she and her husband’s long time habit of holding hands wherever they went. Carolyn had a particularly soft spot in her heart for animals, most especially dogs.

Her very first employment was with the FBI in Washington, D.C., she then went to work for the Indiana State Police in Indianapolis, Ind., but Carolyn retired as the East Branch manager of First National Bank (now called Southern BanCorp) in 2004.

She was always an avid reader, letter writer, and one who loved to crochet. Upon retirement, she loved to travel with her husband, but Blytheville was always considered home. Carolyn often said that you could take her out of Blytheville, but you couldn’t take the Blytheville out of her.

She was a very quiet person who would rather listen to others more than herself; and one thing she did not like was gossip. She always gave everyone a smile, feeling it might the only one they may have received that day. If you told her something it would never be repeated to anyone. She was a good listener, encourager, and a detail person to the truest sense of the word.

Everything Carolyn did was done to the very best of her ability. She always tried to follow her father’s advice of “always do your very best at whatever you do, or don’t do it at all.”

She was a former member of Lone Oak Missionary Baptist Church and dearly loved her church and its members. She was also a former member of the church choir and was a former teacher of the second grade at her church’s Discovery Program. She loved most all types of music, particularly 1960s rock and roll, as well as classical, Bach and Beethoven being her favorite composers. Her favorite musical instruments were the piano and violin.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Wrennie Talmadge and Ina Kate St. John Banks; two brothers, Raymond Lee Banks and John Wesley Banks; and she and her husband’s first beloved black and white Shih Tzu, Annie.

Carolyn leaves her husband, William Paul Crump of the home; a second tri-colored Shih Tzu, Journey Ann; sister and brother-in-law, Ken and Mary Frances Banks Payne of Bono; sister-in-law, Rosema Childers Banks; brother-in-law, David Crump of Paragould; two nieces and three nephews.

Funeral services will be held Thursday, Oct. 27, at 11 a.m. in the Cobb Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Mitchell King, Jr. officiating. Burial will follow in Dogwood Cemetery. The family will receive friends from 10 a.m. until service time at Cobb Funeral Home. Condolences may be expressed to the family at www.cobbfuneralhome.com.