Robert Lee 'Bob' Dykes Sr. Buried at New Hope Cemetery in Brandon

Brandon laid to rest today, in one of its oldest cemeteries, one of its dearest friends, a man remembered among his peers as one of the truly best to have called the town home.

Dick Stowers, who turns 82 on the Fourth of July, skipped not a beat in remembering his time with Robert Lee “Bob” Dykes Sr., 74, whose unexpected heart attack on June 22 cost him his life a day later.

“The day I had my stress test he had his massive,” Stowers said outside the First United Methodist Church of Brandon, where funeral services were held earlier today, before interment at the New Hope Cemetery in Brandon.

“The last time I saw Bob, at the Boy Scouts [Soaring Eagle Award Ceremony] he said, ‘Dick, we need to have lunch again, we have to catch up on things."

There’s been so many luncheon dates over the years.

Stowers said he first met Dykes in 1964, when, as much younger men, they set out to build their families, their careers and their town.

Stowers, with the opening of the Stowers Funeral Home on Brandon Boulevard [now under different ownership and management, despite still bearing the Stowers name] became the town’s first undertaker.

 Dykes was one of the town’s first architects, and a .

At the cemetery, named for the town that used to be known as New Hope, Stowers escorted Dykes’ wife to her seat underneath the blue tent.

"I'm starting my 66th year in the business, this July 15," Stower said. He was with Southern Funeral Care of Riverview, owned by Kevin Talbert, Stowers' stepson, and Mark C. Vargo Sr.

Stowers listened as members of the Brandon Masonic Lodge No. 114, F.&A.M., gathered en masse to lay to rest to their brother Dykes.

His was “a life well lived and well loved,” said the officiating mason. “His memory we revere, his loss we deplore.”

Mason Ron Green said in an interview that Dykes designed the lodge in which the masons meet and that Dykes was "the name you always came up with when you were looking for counsel."

"Bad news, good news, we'd say, 'Bob, what do you think we need to do about this situation?' His name always came up, 'Let's check with Bob Dykes.' "

Vargo, who started his work in the funeral home business as a student at Brandon High, at Stowers Funeral Home, said he grew up knowing Dykes.

"If I had a question about anything about the history of Brandon I'd call Bob," said Vargo, who in December started his 39th year as an undertaker. "Bob knew the history of it all."

History or something else, "all you had to do was ask him for help and he'd help you any way he could," Vargo said.

“He was a great big inspirational part of my family,” said Donnie Moore, shortly before the burial service began. His parents opened, and the family still owns, Brandon Glass on Parsons Avenue.

“Years ago I wrecked my car and the bank paid off, some $3,000 in cash,” Moore said. “My dad said, ‘You’re not going to burn it on gas or a car, you’re going to see Bob and Pat Dykes.’ I said, ‘Dad, I’m 21 years of age and I don’t need a piece of property.’ My dad said I did, and Bob sold me an acre of land for $8,000, he took $3,000 in cash and gave me the title, and that became the first home I moved into with my wife.”

Stories abound of Dykes’ influence over the years in so many lives, and it is the sharing of those stories that the minister of First United Methodist Church of Brandon behooved the funeral attendees to consider in the months and years ahead.

“There’s hundreds of people here today but things are going to get quiet in a month, two months, six months,” the minister said. “If you’ve got lots of stories to tell about Bob, and how he touched your life, what a gift that will be to the family.”

Noted were Dykes' many awards and plaques and tributes, which are not, the minister said, "the fullness of his legacy."

Still, there's a lot there to digest: Dykes was a member of the Brandon Jaycees, the Brandon Masonic Lodge No. 114, the Rotary Club of Brandon, a past president of the Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce, the man who drew the plans for the North Brandon Little League fields, a board member for the Sunshine State Bank.

Where Dykes made an even greater impression, the minister said, is the role he played in his family.

"Every evening at 6 p.m. he would come home, the phone would be turned off, and they had dinner together, as a family. That's a legacy."

In the end, the minister said, Dykes' legacy "is the way that he made a difference in so many people's lives.”

As for Stowers, when asked what do you do when a decades-long friend has passed away, he spoke for many when he said: “You go on, that’s what Bob would have wanted."