Mr. H. Fisher

Don H. Fisher, 91, of Prairie Village, Kansas, passed away Thursday, July 25, 2013, at home. Funeral services will be held Friday, August 2, 2013, 1:00 P.M. at D. W. Newcomer's Sons Overland Park Chapel, 8201 Metcalf Avenue, Overland Park, KS. Friends may visit August 1, 2013, from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. at the chapel. In lieu of flowers memorials may be made to the Asbury United Methodist Church or St. Luke's Hospice. Don was born March 12, 1922, in Salt Lake City, Utah, the youngest of five children born to Lulu Belle and Charles Samuel Fisher. Don attended East High School and Denver College in Denver, Colorado. He was active in Mariner Scouts, photography, and skiing. Following a serious skiing accident on the day Pearl Harbor was bombed, he was unable to serve in the military. During World War II he worked at his uncle's farm in Ossian, Indiana. This was his introduction to agriculture. Following his marriage to Doris Paxson Fisher, September 26, 1945, they lived in rural central Indiana near Noblesville on the 1200-acre Conner Prairie Farm. With over 100 employees, and owned at that time by Eli Lilly of Lilly Drug Company, of Indianapolis, Indiana. The farm was originally established by one of the earliest settlers in central Indiana, William P. Conner. Conner Prairie Farm was both a working farm and a historically significant one. Over fifteen years, Don managed swine production in a program to produce breeding stock of superior meat qualities. He also designed and engineered a farrow-to-finish hog barn and was recognized in the USDA Yearbook of Agriculture of 1960 for this advanced hog-raising system. In 1960 the Fisher family moved to Prairie Village, Kansas. They joined the Asbury United Methodist Church. Don worked as a sales engineer, for various heavy equipment manufacturers such as Darby Steel Corporation and ISCO Manufacturing. As the son of a Civil Engineer, Don was creative and always designing or building something. He never met a challenge he couldn't meet. He loved to share a part of himself wherever he went, many times mentoring young people he knew. His wife of 62 years, Doris preceded him in death. He is survived by his three children, twins Jean Fisher and Joan Fisher Yatteau and Jacquelin Fisher Thompson, and three grandsons, Elliott and Zachary Thompson and Rob Yatteau.

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