Bettye Joyce Cole Burns, age 75, died Friday, February 21, 2014 at her home in Columbus. Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Memorial Funeral Home. Services will be Wednesday, February 26, 2014 at 3:00 PM at Memorial Funeral Home with Dr. Gene Gillis officiating. Visitation will be one hour prior to the service at the funeral home. Burial will follow at Mount Vernon Cemetery. The daughter of the late Carroll Cameron and Lollie Shepherd Cole, Mrs. Burns was born November 11, 1938 in Columbus, MS. She was a graduate of New Hope High School, and she retired from United Technologies with thirty plus years of service. She attended Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, and she loved to watch college basketball, especially the Mississippi State Bulldogs basketball games. She always made symmetrically perfect pecan pies at Christmas and Thanksgiving and game them to her family and close friends. She was predeceased by her parents, her son Jeffrey Burns, her sister Nancy Henson, and her husband John L. Sonny Burns. She is survived by her brother and sister-in-law Jimmy and Glenda Cole, her aunt Juanita Burns, her niece Teresa Cochran and her husband Scott and their children Courtney and Olivia Cochran and her nephew Jason Cole and his wife Nicki and their children Christopher and Katherine Cole. Pallbearers will be Scott Cochran, Jason Cole, Christopher Cole, Alan Chunn, Mark Stokes, Tony Smith, and Cameron Ferguson. Honorary pallbearers will be her home health care nurses Joni Prescott and Tanika Gray, Leon Bell, Doris McGlynn, June Davis, Brenda Weston, Dr. Susan Taylor, Dr. Bart Williams and the staff of Gentiva Home Health Care. Memorials may be made to the American Heart Association, P.O. Box 16808, Jackson, MS 39236.
To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Bettye Joyce Burns, please visit our flower store.
