Benjamin R. Qualls

Bennie Ray Qualls was born at Beaumont Army hospital in El Paso, Texas, on November 2, 1944. He was the first born son of Opal Benjamin Qualls, a career Army officer, and Maze C. Qualls, a career homemaker. He attended schools in El Paso, in Tokyo, Japan in Munich, Germany, and graduated from Edison High School in San Antonio, Texas in 1962. He spent his college years primarily at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, from which he received a bachelor's degree, with an additional brief stint postgraduate at UT Austin. He worked for Southwestern Bell moving to California in the early 1970's. He spent the next two decades in San Francisco and Los Angeles, before returning to El Paso in the early nineties. He became successful as a real-estate broker and at the same time of his passing was with the RE/MAX Real-Estate Group. He grew up in the First Baptist Church of El Paso, attended there after his return to the city, and was a member at the time of his death of Coronado Baptist Church. He was a connoisseur, with his exquisite tastes in dress, in design and in interior decoration, and was an excellent photographer. He has a superb wit, which he employed to the delight of his many friends. For the last decade, he'd attended his mother, who passed away in El Paso in January. He will be missed immensely. He is survived by one brother, James Qualls, his sister-in-law, Debbie Qualls, a nephew, John Qualls, and a grandniece, Ariel Rose Nelson. His marriages ended in divorce. He had no children.