Joe L. Alarid passed away peacefully at home October 27 at 95 years of age.  He was born February 26, 1927 in Clapham, New Mexico; the third of four children to Candelario and Eloisa (Padilla) Alarid. He grew up in Clayton, NM. until he joined the US Army in 1945 where he served in Italy at the end of WWII. After his discharge from the Army, he moved with his family to Denver, CO. where he worked for the Veterans Bureau.

While working in Denver he answered a recruitment ad for the Foreign Service of the US State Department. To his surprise he was accepted. His first assignment in 1954 was to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where he met Lola Sharrock of Bristow, OK. who became his wife and partner for the next 62 years. They raised two sons: John Christopher and David Allan.

For the next 23 years the small family traveled the world to postings in Warsaw Poland, Asunción Paraguay, Washington DC, Bangkok Thailand, Seoul Korea. Rome Italy, Kinshasa Zaire (Democratic Republic of The Congo), Ankara Turkey and Moscow USSR.

Joe retired in 1977 and settled on land that was inherited and bought from Lola's family south of Bristow.  His life was quite a journey from hard-scrabble farming and sheep herding in New Mexico to traveling and working in world capitols.  Shark fishing in the Red Sea.  Pheasant hunting in south Korea.  Skiing in the Italian Alps.  And finally, as his mother in law would say, "piddling around" his Deep Fork farm with his pecans and cows, all with his beautiful wife Lola who shared the adventure with him for 62 years.

Joe was preceded on this next life journey by his parents, his three siblings, his dear wife and a precious grandson, Sebastian Alarid. He is survived by both sons Chris and his wife Beverly of the home and David and his wife Liz in Montreal Canada. In addition, he is survived by four grandsons: Christopher and Sam Alarid, John and James Burkhart, three great grandsons and two great granddaughters and a special friend Kelli McGuire.

His wish was for a quiet passage, cremation and to have his ashes mixed with his wife's and buried on the land they loved.