Raymond C. Duty
1953—2025
Beloved husband, father, grandfather, and brother Raymond C. Duty went to be with the Lord on Feb. 26, 2025.
Raymond was born June 3, 1953, and was a lifelong resident of Mingo County growing up at Ragland and then residing in Delbarton.
He was a graduate of Burch High School class of 1971, where he played trumpet in the high school band. He grew up in a close-knit family and loved Sundays when all his cousins would gather for Sunday dinners and play at the family home at Ragland—The Dutys, The Cookes, the Burkes, the Farleys, the Ramseys and others, along with good friends. He was “Mr. Fixit” and always tinkering with something.
Raymond was a jokester and loved telling stories, especially stories involving his boys, cars, his BoyScout adventures, and his time running a dragline at Martiki Coal. He would always smile and say, “I can’t believe that they let a hillbilly like me run a million-dollar piece of equipment like that.” He was also a former Instructor at Ralph R. Willis Vocational School.
Raymond was also an avid Bluegrass music lover and a devoted Christian. Every Sunday morning, he would always “tune in for Brother Bobby’s sermon” at Bethel Temple Church.
His love of tools and equipment would lead him to open his own successful small engine repair shop, Raymond’s Service Center, in Delbarton, West Virginia. This later became his family business. His love for bluegrass music reunited him with his 8th grade sweetheart, Anita Curry Duty. They later married and with the words “I do,” Raymond chose to become a loving husband and a “Pop” that he didn’t have to be. His boys will forever be grateful for the life lessons, instilling a curiosity for fixing things and a love that only a true father can give. He showed them that love is thicker than blood.
Raymond will rejoin his loving wife Anita Curry Duty at Heaven’s gates, where she has patiently been waiting. He is also reunited with his parents, Talbert R. Duty and Gladys Browning Duty, grandparents Charlie and Mary Duty and Thomas and Dixie Browning, sister Carol Lynn Madden, and brothers-in-law Donald M. “Bud” McNeal, Charles Hugh Madden and Fred Elkins.
Raymond leaves behind three loving sons, Jonathan (Joyce) Barath, Thomas (Brandy, Smiley) Sloan and Dustin (Tabetha, Critter) Sloan, and one daughter, Christy (Joseph) Burgess. He also leaves behind five grandchildren, William David (Amanda) Thacker, Daniel Robert (Breanna) Jonas, Michael Chenoweth, Briana Chenoweth and Benjamin Sloan; three great-grandchildren, Skieghlyn Mahon, Kasen Mahon and Braylon Bowers; two sisters, Rosa Lea McNeal and Joyce Ann Patterson; nieces: Stephannie Tomblin, Renee Kinser, Beth (David) Boggess and Carla (Matt) Wilburn; nephews, Robert (Julie) Elkins, Larry (Barbara) Browning and Christopher Madden.
Funeral services were conducted Monday, March 3 at Mullins Funeral Home in Warfield, with Brother Rev. Bobby Perry officiating. A private burial followed at Highlands Memory Gardens in Chapmanville.
In lieu of flowers, the family humbly asks that donations be made to Mullins Funeral Home to help with funeral expenses. Mullins Family Funeral Home is honored to serve the family.