Ronald A. Parsons, age 81, passed away on Sunday, January 19, 2025 at Good Samaritan Society – Luthor Manor in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. A memorial service will be held at 4:00 pm on Thursday, January 30, 2025 at Calvary Episcopal Cathedral (500 S. Main Ave., Sioux Falls, SD 57104). Ronald's service will be available via livestream at: Calvary Cathedral's Youtube Page

Ronald Arthur Parsons, age 81, surrounded by his beloved wife and family, passed away peacefully in hospice care at Good Samaritan Society – Luthor Manor in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on January 19, 2025.

He was born in Dearborn, a suburb of metro Detroit, on February 25, 1943.  His father, Jonathan Parsons VII, grew up in Kalamazoo and was a physicist at the Henry Ford Institute.  His mother, Alice Mary Merrick, known as "Alya," spent her youth in Ann Arbor, where her father was Professor of Engineering at the University of Michigan, as well as China, where her father worked on large-scale water projects.

At conception, Ron was an identical twin and spent nine months in his mother's womb with his twin brother, who died shortly after birth.  Ron was brought home from the hospital and assumed his place as the youngest of three surviving brothers.

Growing up in booming post-war Detroit, the capitol of the world in the forties and fifties, Ron loved cars and motorcycles.  He was a gifted athlete, named by the Detroit Free Press as the starting center on the all-Detroit high school football team.  Although offered a college football scholarship, Ron instead attended the University of Michigan, eventually graduating from Wayne State University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.

Ron married the love of his life, Beverly Ann Zeidler, at Christ Church in Detroit on February 27, 1965, in the midst of a record-breaking snowstorm.  Ron and Bev loved making trips to take in Broadway shows in New York City, where they saw "I Do, I Do," a musical about the recollections of a couple married for fifty years, that became the soundtrack of their life. Eventually, Ron and Bev had three sons of their own.

After working with computers at a bank in downtown Detroit and briefly starting a computer company with friends, Ron accepted a position at the EROS Data Center in 1976 and moved his family to Sioux Falls.  He remained at EROS for the rest of his career, working with the Landsat series of satellites for the U.S. Geological Service and rising to the level of Chief of Computer Services.

After arriving in Sioux Falls, Ron and his family worshipped as members of Calvary Episcopal Cathedral. Ron loved the outdoors, carpentry, woodworking, fishing, sailing, flying radio-controlled airplanes, camping, and especially traveling with his wife to national parks in their massive RV, accompanied by Gracie, their favorite of many wonderful dogs.

After they both retired, Ron and Bev eventually sold their house, living as nomads in their RV before settling in Leesburg, Florida. They spent more than a decade in their retirement community where they enjoyed the sunshine, made many wonderful friends, and worshipped at St. James Episcopal Church.

In 2023, they moved back to Sioux Falls to be closer to their children and grandchildren, living among both new and old friends at The Lodge at Good Samaritan Prairie Creek.

Ron was a kind man of faith with a great sense of humor and sunny disposition. He liked people.  He was incapable of malice.  He loved his sons, parents, brothers, nieces and nephews, and grandchildren. But above all, he loved and was devoted to Beverly, his wife of almost sixty years.

Ron was predeceased by his parents and three brothers: Howard, Jonathan "Bill," and twin Donald.  He is survived by his wife Beverly; three sons: Ronald Arthur Parsons Jr. (Elizabeth), Theodore Michael Parsons, Andrew Jonathan Parsons (Anne Kotrous); two young grandchildren: Charlotte Elizabeth Parsons and George Merrick Parsons; and many cousins, nieces, and nephews.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests planting a tree somewhere nice where people can enjoy it in Ron's memory.