Tioga Marine Killed
in Viet Nam Combat

Pfc. Royce Glenn Scoggins, 18, was killed in combat in Viet Nam, according to information receivied by his mother, Mrs. Eula Mae Mitchell of Tioga. Glenn Scoggins of McKinney was his father.
Scoggins was killed by a bullet wound in the head at Quang Ngai, Viet Nam. He joined the Marine Corp March 15, 1965, and had been in Viet Nam since Jan. 26.
Born Oct. 2, 1947, in Sherman, he attended school in Collinsville and Tioga.
Funeral services are incomplete but will be held in the Baptist Church of Tioga with burial in the City Cemetery at Tioga. Beck Funeral Home of Pilot Point will handle arrangements.
Other survivors besides his parents, include four brothers, Sammy Scoggins of Sherman, Ronald Scoggins, Whitesboro, Nickey Mitchell, Tioga and Johnnie Scoggins of McKinney; two sisters, Mary Scoggins and Debra Mitchell of Tioga, grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. A. P. Baughman of Tioga and Mr. and Mrs. Elgin Scoggins, Tioga; great-grandmother Mrs. Nettie Roberts of Collinsville.


Burial Set
For Soldier

TIOGA  (Special) - Pfc. Royce Scoggins, 18, who was killed in the fighting in  Viet Nam, will be buried here Friday,
at 2:30 p.m.
The U.S. Marine, who fell in vicious warfare, March 5, will be accorded military honors by an honor guard of Marine regulars from the Naval Air Station at Hensley Field.
His former classmates at Collinsville high school will be pallbearers. They are Jerry Hestand, Tut Oliver, Jacky Lynch, Garry Scoggins, Sam Powers and John Cheatham.
The funeral services will be conducted in the First Baptist Church, with burial in Tioga Cemetery. Arrangements are being made by Beck Funeral Home.
The Rev. Hugh Newsome, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Collinsville, will conduct the services, assisted by Elder
H. G. Ball of the Primitive Baptist Church of Tioga, and the Rev. Bobby Musselwhite, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Tioga.
The family will be at the funeral home tonight from 7 to 9 o'clock.
The Denton Record-Chronicle
Sunday, March 20, 1968

Military Funeral Held At Tioga
For Area's First Viet Nam Dead

Marine Private First Class
Buried In A Hero's Service
By Bill Rives
Executive Editor

TIOGA - Royce Scoggins, Marine private first class, was buried here Friday.
He had been shot in the head.
He had not yet reached the midway mark of his eighteenth year.
It was one of the largest funerals ever held in Tioga. Virtually the entire town of approximately 500 residents closed down during the services - which were conducted by three ministers at the Tioga Baptist Church - and during the burial rites that followed.
The church overflowed long before the services began. Hymnal music, sadly soft, came from a piano. Other than that, inside and outside, there was almost total silence. The church is just off Highway 99, and the only noise came from an occassional automobile passing through this farming community.
Flowers were heavily banked, all the way across the church, in front of the first row of pews and directly behind the casket.
A United States flag draped the coffin . . .
The Rev. Hugh Newsom, pastor of the First Baptist Church in nearby Collinsville, where Royce Scoggins went to school and to church, quoted a Biblical passage:
"He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down."
Royce Scoggins, you might say, was nobody special. Except to those who knew him and held him dear.
After all, he hadn't much time to acheive anything of note.