Joyce Worrell

Funeral services for Clara Joyce Porter Worrell will be held Thursday, May 23, 2024, at noon in the Chapel of Wolf Funeral Services in Morton, MS. Interment to follow in the Clifton Baptist Church cemetery. Visitation will be held from 10 a.m. until 11:45 a.m. immediately prior to funeral services. Rev. Chad Bowen and Rev. Kenneth Walters will officiate. 

 Mrs. Worrell, 82, died in Forest on Monday, May 20, 2024, after an extended illness. Joyce was born Nov. 20, 1941, at the home of her parents, the late Woods Eastland Porter and Christine Jones Porter, in the Clifton community in Scott County. She spent her happy childhood on that family farm. She later graduated from Harperville High School and Draughon’s College of Business in Jackson. 

 Joyce was a talented homemaker and loved her family. She had a marvelous sense of humor. One of the signal events in Joyce’s life was her marriage to her best friend and the love of her life, Thomas Lloyd Worrell, who was taken from her in a tragic accident in 1998.

 An accomplished legal secretary, Joyce began her career working in the law offices of Judge Roy Noble Lee and continued at Lee & Lee Law Firm after Judge Lee was appointed to the Mississippi Supreme Court. She later retired from service in the offices of U.S. District Judge Tom S. Lee.

 Survivors include son Michael (Tambra) Worrell of Forest, daughter Pamela (Shawn) Gamber of Lake, grandchildren Kayla (John Paul) Waggoner of Forest and Thomas Haralson of Lake, great-grandchildren Cameron, Dylan and Layla Waggoner, sisters, Faye (Kenneth) Walters of Hattiesburg and Debbie (A.B.) Chaney of Little Rock, MS, and sister-in-law Ann Porter of Forest.

She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, and her brother Bobby Carl Porter.

Memorials may be made to the Forest United Methodist Church 501 E 3rd St, Forest, MS 39074.