Dean C. Batt was born May 14, 1926, to Charles H. and Selma (Bauer) Batt, the younger of two sons.

Dean was raised on the family farm northeast of Marion. He graduated from Marion High School in 1941. He attended Tabor College for one semester and then transferred to Kansas State University as a pre-veterinary medicine major. While there, he received his draft notice for service in World War II.

During Dean’s military career, he was assigned to the medical corps. After his discharge from the military in 1946, Dean was married to Bettie Geis of Okeene, Okla. They would have been married 65 years in July. To this union was born a daughter, Shelley.

After their marriage, Dean attended the University of Kansas. Dean’s career goal switched from veterinary medicine to law. While in law school, Dean was a member of the ROTC and a captain in the Judge Adjutant General’s Department of the Air Force, until his honorable discharge in April 1959. He was a member of Phi Alpha Delta law fraternity. In May 1949, he graduated from the KU School of Law.

Dean began his law career in Marion in the fall of 1949, and also maintained a Hillsboro office beginning in 1956. Later, he served two terms as county attorney and was associated with the firm of Wheeler and Westerhaus. He joined with Roger Morse in 1965 to form the Morse and Batt partnership. That partnership lasted for 28 years, until Dean retired in 1993.

During his working years, Dean was a member of Marion Kiwanis Club, Marion Chamber of Commerce, American Legion, and the Masonic Lodge. At the invitation of the State Bar Association, he was invited to make a “People to People” tour to Russia in 1969, a time when Russia was not generally open to tourists. In 1971, he traveled to South America with the same group. Later, he and his wife traveled extensively.

Dean passed away Feb. 25, 2011, at St. Luke Living Center in Marion.

He was preceded in death by his parents and his beloved older brother, Herb.

Dean is lovingly survived by his wife, Bettie; daughter Shelley Wiest and her husband Paul; and two grandchildren, Avery and Brady Archambo.

May he be remembered as a kind, patient, generous, soft spoken, and God-fearing man who was genuinely devoted to his family. In the long debilitating illness, and throughout his four-year stay at St. Luke Living Center, he was not heard to complain. He loved his wife, his daughter, and grandchildren. May his memory live on in them and in the hearts of his friends.

Services were 1:30 p.m. March 26, 2011, at Eastmoor United Methodist Church in Marion, preceded by a private burial in Marion Cemetery.

Memorial funds have been established with St. Luke Foundation and Eastmoor United Methodist Church in care of Zeiner Funeral Home, 205 Elm St, Marion KS, 66861.