Derek A. Cooksey

Derek A. Cooksey, 52, of Davenport, Iowa, died Sunday, June 6, 2021, at University of Iowa Hospital, after a nearly 20-year year battle with blood cancer (Chronic Myeloid Leukemia).

A celebration of life will be held at The Buffalo Community Center 426 Clark St, Buffalo, IA 52728, on Sunday July 18, 2021 from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. Please bring a dish to share. Cremation has taken place at Trimble Crematory, Moline, under the direction of Cremation Society of the Quad Cities.

Derek was born April 7, 1969, in Davenport, to Dale and Pamela (Bowers) Cooksey. He graduated from Davenport West High School in 1987 and married Kristi Smith in 2001. He worked for Davenport Electric.

Derek loved working at Davenport Electric. He worked in the tool crib repairing tools, picked up the girls lunch sometimes, checked the mail, went to the bank with deposits, stopped at the local supply houses getting material, Menards, and applied letter vinyl to the work vehicles. There wasn't anything Derek couldn't fix or repair. He just did whatever needed done including secret missions as he and Barry called them, from dropping off things to the church, to Aunt Karla's, Osco Illinois for fireworks, replacing ceiling tiles to building shelves in the work vans or some project in the woodshop. Working along side Kirk AKA “Ernie & Bozo”, a couple of clowns formed a remarkable friendship doing all the odd jobs together. Derek formed remarkable friendships with everyone at DECCO. That was his second family. Anything Derek needed he was always given by his Boss, Barry… I mean anything. Derek would make extra chicken (Money) as he called it, scraping copper wire eventually getting a sophisticated self-feeding machine making it easier to scrap the wire.

Derek started dating Kristi on June 19,1999. She had a 3-year old son. They quickly became a family a couple years later got married and Derek adopted Tyler. They had an instant connection and bond. They were inseparable. Derek taught Tyler all the basics from tying his shoes, riding a bicycle, learning to drive and fixing his vehicle.

Derek was a loyal Cowboys fan, a dirt track follower and the love he had for his hero race car driver Gary Webb. He loved to fish and was known as the “fish whisperer”. He loved keeping his lawn cut Wednesday, and Sunday was lawn beautification day. His lawn always resembled a golf course. He watched YouTube as he called it to watching grass videos, Pete from GCI Turf , Dirt track following updates from Psycho Billy Live, watching grass related videos to videos moving dirt, and Let’s Dig 18.

Derek was a stylish, everything had to be matching shirt, hat ,shoes, down to his underwear yet, practical man. Derek developed quite a passion for pork tenderloins traveling as far as his body would allow for a day trip to the next tenderloin. His love for chocolate milk in the mornings drinking a gallon a week, He sucked down as many coca colas a day that his belly would allow. Every night eating a chocolate Hershey bar that he kept in the freezer because he knew his wife wouldn't eat them if they were cold. His love for spree candies ,sweet tarts, smarties, sixlets and peanut butter crackers. Eating weekly sometimes twice a week at ElCompita Mexican restaurant. He enjoyed frequent road trips within a 3 hour distance. You just never knew where his travels would take him. Iowa ,Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri. He once ventured to Minnesota after a visit for a cancer check at university of Iowa Cancer center making a additional 3 hour trip. He went to see one of the 10,000 lakes and never even found even a creek or a mud puddle. The visitor center was under maintenance and closed so He found a Five Guys ate and traveled back home.

He loved visiting different grocery stores, Kroger grocery store was his favorite, Farm King Multiple Visits to his Niece Taylor and Great Niece ShyLynn, His road trips were always based around the pork tenderloin, and cheese curds .He settled for including ice cream on these trips for his wife. He wasn't a big fan of ice cream because his belly didn't agree but he sure ate a lot of it to keep his wife happy. He got his tenderloin she got her ice cream. Last years road trips included Sunflowers so his travels would be based on sunflowers and the nearest tenderloin. He wasn't a sunflower person but he planted them for his wife and used the IOWA DNR food plot map for feeding the doves to locate sunflowers. “If you seen one sunflower you seen them all.”, he would say but continued traveling all the local counties in Iowa in search for the sunflower fields. Which then included a stop for his beloved tenderloin. He followed the page pursuing the pork tenderloins.

Survivors include his wife, Kristi; son, Tyler Cooksey; mother, Pamela Cooksey; step-mother, Nancy Cooksey; sister, Melissa Cooksey-Villalpando; and nieces and nephew, Taylor, Emma, and Erek; great-nieces and -nephew, Danielle, ShyLynn, and Nixon; mother-in-law, Betty Stroyan; father-in-law, Mike Stroyan; sister-in-law, Kim Smith Osborn; brother-in-law, Kevin Osborn; and a niece-in-law and nephew-in-law, Madison Mayfield and Devin Osborn. He was preceded in death by his father, grandparents, and a great-niece.

Condolences may be shared at CremationQC.com.