Maynard Wellington Wilkins

Maynard Wellington Wilkins died Friday, May 28, 2010 at Hinkle Hospice House in Lexington. He was born in Ararat Top, Pennsylvania on April 29, 1925, the son of Ralph Lyman Wilkins and Nettie Jenks Wilkins. He and his two brothers, Gordon and Harold, were raised on a farm in upstate New York near the town of Oneonta. The family moved to Florida where Maynard worked as a cowboy on a cattle ranch during his teenage years. In 1944, he answered his country's call and enlisted in the U.S. Army. He became a paratrooper, earning his jump wings at Ft. Benning, Georgia. He served in the South Pacific during World War II and with the U.S. occupation forces in Japan after the war. Returning home, Maynard came to North Carolina, where his parents had moved. He worked as a truck driver and then joined the Asheboro Police Department in 1948. Many Asheboro residents recall seeing him riding the department's Harley-Davidson motorcycle on patrol. He met and married Eva Spencer and they had one son, Robert Maynard Wilkins, in 1956. Maynard continued his career in law enforcement until 1968, when he retired from the police department with the rank of Lieutenant. For a few years following his retirement, he tried his hand at a variety of different jobs: store clerk, service station owner, furniture salesman and doughnut shop owner. However, he missed the world of law enforcement and started his own bail bonding company in 1971. He remarried in 1974 and worked side by side with his second wife, Jo Doris Trotter McMasters, until her death in 1993. He actively worked in the business until illness forced him to retire at the end of 2009 at age 84. He often said that he had spent twenty years putting people in jail and almost forty years getting them out. He always viewed his profession as a public service, giving him an opportunity to help people when they needed it most and to help them turn their lives around. Maynard attended Rushwood Park Wesleyan Church and loved to witness to folks about how the Lord had healed him after he suffered a heart attack. He was a member of the American Legion and AMVETS. He loved to play rummy with family and friends, enjoying spirited games with them several nights each week. He enjoyed buying, selling and trading cars the same way folks used to trade horses back in his youth. Most of all, he loved the Lord, his family and his friends. Maynard was preceded in death by his parents, his brothers and his wives. He is survived by his son, Rob Wilkins, his daughter-in-law, Cindy Allred Wilkins and his two granddaughters, Carlye and Cloie, all of Asheboro. He is also survived by two nieces, Marilou Galluser of California and Linda Siegel of Illinois, as well as by his stepdaughter, Denise Deaton, who lives in Asheboro with her husband Buster and their sons Tony and Ryan and their families. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Randolph County Hospice House building fund, P.O. Box 9, Asheboro, NC 27204-0009 or the American Cancer Society. The family will receive visitors at Pugh Funeral Home in Asheboro from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Monday, May 31, 2010. A memorial service will be held at Pugh Funeral Home on Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 4:00 p.m. with Dr. Ron Hamilton officiating. A graveside service will follow at Mt. Shepherd United Methodist Church will military honors by the Randolph County Honor Guard. Online condolences may be made at www.pughfuneralhome.com.