Robert “Dink” Miller Obituary

Funeral services for Robert “Dink” Miller, 84, of Floyd, NM will be held a10:00 AM, Sat., May 31, 2025 in the Wheeler Mortuary Chapel with Randy Dunson officiating.  Burial will follow in the Floyd Cemetery with Thomas McAlister, Harold Nixon, Kenneth Cox, Greg Culwell, Chris Smith, Glen Thornton, Kendall Buzard and Michael Jacobs serving as pallbearers.  All of Dink’s many friends will serve as honorary pallbearers.

Robert “Dink” Miller was born June 15, 1940, to B.F. and Florence Miller of Portales. He passed away peacefully May 25, 2025, surrounded by loved ones, three weeks short of his 85th birthday.
Dink spent many years farming, ranching, and working custom carpentry in the Portales area. In 1982, he married the love of his life Mitzi (Bass) and together they lived in the Floyd area in a house Dink had hand built with the help of a few neighbors. He thoroughly enjoyed camping, working in his crops, riding horses, and tending to his prized herd of Angus cattle.

A lifelong resident of the Portales and Floyd area, Dink had been a member of the Floyd School Board, Treasurer of the New Mexico Peanut Commission, and a board member of the New Mexico Angus Association, as well serving as an EMT for the Floyd Fire Department for ten years.

For years he was a member of the Floyd Lions Club and enjoyed the Floyd Lion Jamborees. Additionally, Dink and Mitzi were voted the 1991 Citizens of the Year, presented by the Floyd Lions Club. In his last few years as a Lion member, he organized the Sunday Gospel Programs. Dink always loved country western music and enjoyed dancing. He supported his son Ronnie in his musical ambitions as well as multiple Miller nieces and nephews in their music. He was the number one fan of the Sandhill Country Band (Randy, Nancy, Gary, Janie, Tommy, and Mitzi). He always looked forward to going to the Back Porch Picker jams and the Amarillo and Beaver, OK music events.

Dink could build almost anything he needed to use on the farm or in his aviation maintenance shop. He created many specialty tools which served only one purpose during an aircraft engine overhaul or a special project for one of his tractors. Dink enjoyed sketching out designs and fabricating some of his own equipment to be used on the farm. His son Kyle always thought Dink was “just like McGuyver – he can build anything!”

Dink learned to fly, earning a private pilot license, continuing to a commercial instrument rating, flight instructor rating, multi-engine rating, airline transport pilot rating, an airframe and powerplant license, and aircraft inspector license. Eventually turning his passion into a job, he pioneered the rigging of the first airplane used to measure cropland in the U.S. for the ASCS offices and later installed cameras in planes for other vendors flying the same type of jobs. Towards the end of his ASCS flying, he learned to use a computer program stitching the aerial photos together, creating an entire county map from which any farm within that county could be measured. In addition to agricultural photography, he and Mitzi ran a crop-dusting business for many years, flying hundreds of miles back and forth across the New Mexico landscape. He had accumulated almost 12,000 flight hours when he finally had to hang up his wings due to Parkinson’s Disease.  Dink lived with Parkinson’s Disease for over 20 years. He had a deep brain stimulator (DBS) implant with the doctor telling him that he would probably only live another five to eight years, but he had true grit and carried on with his DBS more than 12 years.

Dink was preceded in death by his parents, his son Ronnie, daughter Robie, sister-in-law Freida Miller, and brother-in-law Martin Chandler. He is survived by his wife Mitzi, son Kyle, daughter-in-law Alicia, brother Dale Miller, sister Edith Chandler, his grandchildren Tina, Tanya, Amy, Chris, Holly, Hannah, Tyler, McKenzie, Justin, his great-grandchildren, as well as numerous nieces and nephews all of whom he loved dearly.

In lieu of flowers or other gifts, the family requests that donations be made in his name to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research at https://give.michaeljfox.org.

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Robert “Dink” Presley Miller, please visit our floral store.