Kelly Max Harrison (Plainview)

Grab your favorite beverage and get comfortable! This is a long one, but it felt like the best way to remember a man who loved a good story—the more twists and turns, the better!

Kelly Max Harrison 

September 24, 1939 – September 12, 2026

Kelly Max Harrison died on September 12, 2026, in Amman, Jordan, just shy of his 87th birthday. We can almost hear him belting out John Denver’s, “I have to say it now, it’s been a good life all in all, it’s really fine to have a chance to hang around…” He leaves behind a family he adored, friends and colleagues around the world, and a life marked by curiosity, adventure, faith, and an abiding enthusiasm for whatever might come next.

Kelly was born September 24, 1939, in Lockney, Texas, and remained a proud West Texas farm boy no matter how far life took him from those dusty plains. As a boy, he spent long hours driving a tractor beneath the enormous West Texas sky. He would sing at the top of his lungs—loud enough, he later claimed, for the neighboring farmhouse to hear—and use those solitary hours to dream about who he might become and how he might make a difference in the world beyond his small hometown. He didn’t yet know how he would get there. He just knew it would be big.

He didn’t wait until adulthood to start having adventures. As teenagers, Kelly and his brother Leroy drove a combine north in search of harvesting work, sleeping under the truck at night and drumming up business during the day. There was also some fence-hopping and skinny-dipping in the local swimming pool. Apparently, the future professor and international development expert was already conducting field research.

That curiosity and sense of possibility carried him far beyond Lockney. Kelly attended Texas Tech University, Kansas State University, and Michigan State University. Looking back, he remained a little amazed by the path his life had taken. “I didn’t have any idea what I was gonna do next! But every time I reached another milestone, the next opportunity would appear!” For a simple, small-town boy, he was immensely complex.

In 1961, he married his childhood sweetheart, Loy O’Brien. They had grown up together and dated through much of their teen and college years. Over 32 years of marriage, life took them through four children, four states, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Brazil, Jordan, and more than a few adventures along the way.

Kelly married Dina Said in 1996, beginning another great chapter of his life. Dina’s fiery spirit was well matched to his pioneering one, and she became his partner in life and, often, in work. Together they shared his international world, particularly in Jordan and Egypt, along with his seemingly endless stream of ideas, projects, questions, and dreams. He was proud to help raise her sons, Sami and Nadim. Dina understood perhaps better than most how inseparable Kelly’s work, faith, and sense of purpose were, and she was his companion through nearly three decades of that journey.

Kelly’s career spanned more than four decades and much of the globe. He was, at various times, a professor, researcher, teacher, international agricultural economist, government official, consultant, and entrepreneur. He served on the faculty of Michigan State University, advised the Colombian Minister of Agriculture, held senior leadership positions with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and founded Kelly Harrison Associates, through which he worked in more than 25 countries.

Some of Kelly’s most meaningful work was in Latin America, Jordan, and Egypt, helping farmers and agricultural businesses develop stronger markets and gain access to opportunities beyond their borders. He could travel halfway around the world and still look every bit the West Texas farm boy in his boots and Wranglers. But he went with a genuine desire to know the people he worked alongside and to use whatever knowledge, access, or influence he had to make their lives better. He formed deep relationships across cultures and continents and was loved by many of the people with whom he worked.

To Kelly, economic development wasn’t simply an academic discipline or a job. He believed deeply in human potential. Dina, who shared much of this chapter of his life, remembers that he understood his work as part of his God-given purpose: “human evolution through economic development.” Whether he was working with farmers, students, entrepreneurs, government officials, or exporters, Kelly saw possibility—and then wanted to help make that possibility real.

But titles and accomplishments tell only a small part of Kelly’s story.

Kelly was endlessly curious. He loved ideas, books, people, cultures, nature, coffee, orchids, football, the Texas Tech Red Raiders, the Dallas Cowboys, and relaxing on the beach. He loved learning almost as much as he loved passing along whatever he’d learned. He was forever handing someone a book and saying, “This might not be right for right now, but hang onto it, and one day you’ll pull it off the shelf and it will be just what you need.”

He was also a dreamer and entrepreneur, whether or not anyone else could see the opportunity. On a family drive from Virginia to West Texas in the early 1980s, Kelly took everyone out of the way to taste water flowing from a spring. “Kids! Doesn’t this taste amazing? We could bottle and sell this!” His children rolled their eyes. Who on earth, they wondered, would ever pay money for water?

Kelly loved adventure, but much of the adventure in his life came in service of a larger purpose. His work took him to places well off the usual path, and getting there was sometimes a story in itself: a flight in Brazil whose pilot pulled out a road map for navigation; a Romanian airliner with the beverage cart stored in front of the emergency exit; a stop in Russia where the pilots left the passengers sitting on the tarmac while they went off to eat and sleep. He traveled where the work took him, eager to understand the people and places he encountered along the way.

That spirit spilled naturally into family life. Multi-day bicycle and canoe trips, international travel, long road trips, planes, trains, ferries, and the occasional chicken bus all became part of family lore. Whenever plans went awry—and they often did—Kelly would grin and announce, “Makin’ memories!” His children generally responded with groans and eye rolls. Decades later, they have to admit he was right.

He loved a good story, too. When his children were small, they’d pile onto the oldest daughter’s bed while Daddy spun tales of the Robinson family’s adventures. These often took place in far off corners of the world and conveyed the beauty, richness, and struggles of the people the Robinson’s met along the way. For a time in the 1970s, he owned a guitar and knew exactly one song: “Down in the Valley.” He sang it enthusiastically and badly, continuing to the end of the chorus no matter how loudly his children begged him to stop.

That same exuberance marked his faith. Raised in the Church of Christ, Kelly cherished his Bible and loved Jesus, even as his understanding of God expanded through decades of travel, study, and encounters with people of different cultures and traditions. He was a lifelong spiritual seeker who wasn’t afraid of difficult questions. He read widely—including a well-worn copy of the Tao filled with underlining, exclamation points, and, in true Kelly fashion, a two-page typed index of his own making. One of the scriptures especially meaningful to him was Romans 8:28: “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.”

Perhaps most of all, Kelly saw potential. He saw it in countries and economies, in farmers and students, in unlikely business ideas, and especially in the people he loved. He delighted in the individuality of his children, stepchildren, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. This one was athletic! That one worked so hard! One had a gentle spirit; another was intuitive, funny, lively, or so smart! Kelly noticed what made each one distinctive, and he was enormously proud of them.

Kelly loved his immediate and extended family, treasured lifelong friendships and class reunions, and maintained friendships across decades and continents. Whenever he returned to Lockney, he was apt to rise before everyone else and head out for an early jog—ostensibly for exercise, but really to see who else was awake and where he might find an old friend, cousin, or family member willing to have a cup of coffee.

Kelly is survived by his wife, Dina Harrison; his children, Kim Vanatta (Lyall), Kristi Berrier (Mark), Misty Blahuta (Corey), and Scott Harrison; his stepsons, Sami Bawalsa (Maria) and Nadim Bawalsa; his grandchildren, Leah Gooley (Taylor), Jesse Vanatta (Rachel), Harrison Berrier, Emme Blahuta, Addie Berrier, O’Brien Blahuta, and step-granddaughter Zoe Xavier; and his great-grandchildren, Killian Vanatta, Lawson Gooley, Scout Vanatta, and Knox Gooley and many nieces and nephews.

He also leaves behind three devoted caregivers: Jane Raagas, who cared for him for four years; Paramjet Chouhan, for three years; and Amy Ordinario, for the last five months of his life. His family is deeply grateful for the loving care and companionship they gave him.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Doyle and Velma Harrison, and by his siblings and their spouses: Leroy and Jo Harrison, Betty and Kenneth Jackson, Bonnie and Monty Barret, and Doylene and Dub Dipprey.

Kelly was complicated, as all human beings are. He lived expansively. He dreamed big, worked hard, questioned, learned, taught, traveled, took risks, made mistakes, loved deeply, and remained fascinated by what the world—and the people in it—might yet become.

And through all of it, he kept makin’ memories.

A funeral prayer service will be held at 5 p.m. Sunday, September 20, at Church of the Redeemer in Amman, Jordan. A memorial service celebrating Kelly’s life will be held Saturday, October 10, 2026, at 2 p.m. at Westside Church of Christ in Lockney, Texas. In lieu of flowers, the family invites memorial gifts to the Lockney Volunteer Fire Department, the Texas FFA Foundation, or the Alzheimer’s Association—honoring Kelly’s West Texas roots, his lifelong commitment to agriculture and human potential, and the disease that touched the final years of his life.