A memorial for Emil Edwin "Ed" Speck, 80, of Oacoma will be from 12:00 noon to 3:00 pm on Saturday April 28, 2018 at the Oacoma Community Center in Oacoma.  Burial of the ashes in Graceland Cemetery in Oacoma at a later date.

Emil Edwin "Ed" Speck, nee Goehring, was born August 6, 1937, to Josephine and Emil Goehring on a dirt road in Faulk County, SD, en route to the hospital.  Josephine next married William "Bill" Speck and the family moved to Chamberlain, SD in 1952.  After his schooling, Ed worked several years for Louis Truman near Fort Thompson before working on the National Guard Armory, the Presbyterian Church, and several other buildings in Chamberlain and the surrounding area.

On March 22, 1958, Ed married Barbara Stallman in Pierre, SD.  Following the birth of their first son, they family moved to Farmington, NM where he started his lifelong career in the oilfields of the southwest, eventually including the Rocky Mountain states, offshore drilling at Long Beach, CA, and with the Atomic Energy Commission test site near Tonapah, NV outside Las Vegas.  After the test site was shut down, her returned to the oilfields of Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, Montana, and Utah.  In Utah, he worked as a truck pusher fort Trans Western Tankers.

The family returned to South Dakota in 1978.  He spent the next two years remodeling an old house they purchased in Oacoma and found he liked the work and started Speck Construction and enjoyed his new life, stopping only when his health began to fail.

On March 22, 2018, Ed joined Barbara at Sanford Hospital in Sioux Falls to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary; his only wish before he passed away and God granted him that.

Ed was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2014.  This soon included brain cancer.  He passed away quietly, April 11, 2018, at home with Barbara at his side.

He is survived by his wife, two sons Donn and Casey, daughter Sindi, grandsons Morgan Speck and Jason Speck, granddaughter Taylor Speck, and great granddaughter Lauren Speck.  One son, Bill, preceded him in death.