Ruby "Jolene" (Turner) Davis

Ruby Jolene Davis, of Troup, Texas, left Earth to enter her heavenly home on Friday, September 19, 2025. She was born on May 24, 1951, in Tucson, Arizona, to her loving parents, Walter Wayne Turner and Betty Jean Brooks Turner.

Funeral services for Jolene Davis will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, September 27, 2025, at Cottle-Pearson Funeral Home, Overton, Texas. Interment will immediately following the service at Elkins Cemetery, Troup, Texas. Visitation will be held from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Friday, September 26, 2025, at the funeral home.

From a young age, Jolene was driven, creative, and passionate, always dreaming of a life surrounded by animals. Whether raising guppies or exotic birds, she pursued every opportunity with determination, ultimately fulfilling her lifelong dream of breeding and showing dogs. In her own words, she spent her later years “living her dream,” and she truly was.

Jolene earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Arizona, where she conducted unique research, including recycling cow pies for fuel, and worked on the university’s agricultural farm, a place she loved. (She even kept her favorite cow’s tag on her keychain.) She taught science briefly at a university in Long Island, New York, before moving to Texas, where she worked in a research lab at Texas A&M.

A brilliant mind and a gifted scientist, Jolene went on to start her own company, Wellstream Analytic, specializing in testing oil and gas wells. She was a certified gas chromatographer, a talented artist, and the designer of her own elegant whippet logo.

Jolene’s love for dogs shaped much of her life. After meeting Mrs. Freddy Page in 1970, she fell in love with whippets and spent more than five decades breeding, showing, and championing Whippets and Italian Greyhounds. Earlier in life, she also showed her beloved English Setters. She earned countless AKC championships, mentored many in the dog world, and was known for her honesty, loyalty, and deep dedication to the health and happiness of her animals. She was a proud member of the Lone Star Whippet Club, the Tyler, Texas Kennel Club, and supported multiple organizations that protect dog ownership rights.

Jolene was an incredibly intelligent, artistic, compassionate woman—treasured and loved immensely by her family and friends. She was a strong warrior, a reliable friend, and an irreplaceable source of advice, love, and support to all who knew her. Truly, hers was a life well lived.

She is survived by her beloved mother, Betty Turner of Sanford, North Carolina; her children, Vollie Davis and wife Sabrina of Kilgore, Lou Davis and wife Cherrie of Kilgore, Maurine Davis and husband Alejandro Gutierrez of Tyler, and Delores Davis of Sulphur Springs; her sister, Brenda Watson and husband Tim of Sanford, North Carolina; and her cherished grandchildren, Lewis Davis, Adriana Gutierrez Davis, and Jonathan Gutierrez Davis.

She was preceded in death by her husband, James Vollie Davis; her father, Walter Wayne Turner; and her son, James Theron Davis.

Arrangements are under the direction of Cottle-Pearson Funeral Home, Overton, Texas.  

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