Richard E. Comfort

Richard E. Comfort, 81, of Broken Arrow, passed away Monday, March 11, 2019. He was born August 17, 1937 in El Paso, Texas, the sixth child and fourth son of Ray and Elsie Comfort. Over a career spanning more than 50 years and a life spanning more than 80, Tulsa, Oklahoma attorney, Richard Comfort, had been a band director, a judge, a businessman, a pilot and a professional musician. He was also a generous and caring son, brother, father, grandfather, mentor and neighbor. He attended the University of Arkansas and Arkansas A&M College, completing requirements for a B.S.E. degree in 1960. He attended law school at University of Arkansas and University of Tulsa, graduating in the top 10 percent of the class from the latter with a Juris Doctor degree in April of 1970. He served on the bench in Tulsa and Pawnee counties from 1973 to 1981. In 1974, he graduated from the National College of State Judiciary in Reno, Nevada. After leaving the bench in 1981, he practiced law in Tulsa, Oklahoma with several firms including Hall Estill and Comfort, Lipe & Green, and finally as a solo practitioner until he retired in 2009. He completed mediation training with the Founder, Executive Director and Chief Mediator of United States Arbitration and Mediation, Inc., in Seattle, Washington in 1988. In 1990, he trained as Adjunct Settlement Judge with Tulsa County Adjunct Settlement Judge Program, a joint project of the Tulsa County District Court and the City of Tulsa Municipal Court, May 1990 and served as an adjunct settlement judge for two years. He participated in advanced mediation training at the Attorney-Mediators Institute in Houston, Texas in 1995 and at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California in 1999. He was a private pilot with instrument rating and enjoyed flying family and friends throughout the United States and Bahamas. He is survived by a daughter and son-in-law, Elizabeth and Geoff Goolsbay of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma; grandchildren, Ryan Reynolds of Denver, Colorado, Trey and Miranda Goolsbay of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Jessie and Sam Carr of Jenks, Oklahoma. He was preceded in death by his parents, Ray and Elsie Comfort; brothers and sisters-in-law Frank and Emma Comfort, Robert Comfort, and Paul Comfort; sisters and brothers-in-law Juanita and Alford Lee and Carole and Robert Plemmons. He is survived by his sister Norma Copelin of Bentonville, Arkansas, his sister and brother-in-law Margaret and Charles Stigers of Butte, Montana, and two sisters-in-law Pauline Comfort and Allene Comfort, along with sixteen nieces and nephews. He was a member of the Boston Avenue Methodist Church, 1301 S. Boston Ave., Tulsa, Oklahoma 74119, in Tulsa, Oklahoma where funeral services will take place on Friday, March 15th at 10:00am with a graveside service for family at 3:00pm that same day at Benton County Memorial Gardens in Rogers, Arkansas, where interment will take place. Memorial contributions may be made to the Alzheimer's Association at https://www.alz.org.

Richard E. Comfort

August 17, 1937 - March 11, 2019