Verle Dean Brown, 83, of Washington died October 25, 2026, in Hermann, Missouri.

He was born December 26, 1942, to Dell and Mildred (Hakel) Brown in Kearney, Nebraska. His hospital birth was a family milestone since both his father and mother had each been born in a sod house in 1906 and 1912 near Kearney. The family farmed in nearby Pleasanton. Their rented house had no electricity or indoor plumbing until Dean was about five years old. He attended a one-room country school and later recalled vivid memories of wet mittens drying by a coal stove, and a few classmates riding horses to school. Dean, however, was too frail to have been given a pony. For years he was plagued with tonsil infections and sinus problems in an era when antibiotics were not yet widely prescribed. In the mid-1940s, one country doctor claimed Dean’s strep throat could be cured by placing him under a heat lamp. The treatment failed. As a second grader, Dean’s report card noted that he’d missed 33 days of school.

The family quit farming about 1953 because Dean’s father had a bleeding ulcer, which today would be treated with medicine for a couple of weeks. They lived briefly in nearby Grand Island and Ravenna, then settled in Kearney where Dell Brown became a house painter. Dean graduated from Kearney High School in 1960, and four years later earned a bachelor of science degree from Kearney State College (now the University of Nebraska-Kearney). He double majored in mathematics and French.

In the summer before his senior year in college, Dean made a life-changing decision. An only child, he cut the apron strings from his loving, hovering parents, who had never paid a babysitter nor encouraged him to stay overnight with relatives or friends. Dean told his parents that he had saved enough money from his part-time hotel job as a bell hop (25 cents an hour) and desk clerk (a little more) to fly to France and spend two months in Paris. His French professor would accompany and supervise the small group of students, and they would study at the Sorbonne University, founded in 1253. All the classes would be taught in French.

The 1961 musical, “Stop the World, I Want To Get Off,” made no sense to Dean. After that summer in Paris—with side trips to England, Scotland, Belgium, Germany, and Holland—Dean’s wrote his own personal anthem. “Stop the World, I Want To Get On.”

After graduating from college, Dean attended Louisiana State University, enrolling in a master’s degree program in math. After one year, however, his chronic sinus infections, the year-round humidity, and a lone alligator that wandered onto campus near his dorm convinced him that maybe belonged back in the Midwest. He completed his master’s degree in mathematics at Oklahoma State University in 1967 and intended to teach but his eye caught a couple of men in suits at a card table at a job fair in the student union. They were from the Central Intelligence Agency. They eventually provided a plane ticket to Washington, D.C, arranged many interviews, checked references, and offered Dean a job. He stayed 31 years, retiring in 1998.

Dean held several senior positions in the agency’s directorates of administration, science, technology, and intelligence, although he did not work undercover. He contributed reports to staff members who briefed the White House and Congress, and in one leadership position established a relationship with the University of Maryland, which led to an onsite certification and MBA program taught at CIA headquarters. In 1988, Dean was granted a one-year sabbatical. The exchange program, developed by the White House, selected about two dozen senior government managers to work in private industry and vice versa. Dean was assigned to McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis and worked in strategic planning. For many years he was also an adjunct math instructor for the University of Virginia, teaching night classes at CIA facilities to employees who needed classes to complete degrees or for job advancement.

On June 3, 1972, Dean married Aneeta Spelts in Kearney at the home of the bride’s parents. The Rev. Ralph S. Hamilton, pastor of Dundee Presbyterian Church in Omaha, officiated. The couple had met seven summers earlier when Dean was a desk clerk at the Fort Kearney Hotel, and Aneeta was a waitress in the coffee shop, preparing to enroll as a freshman in college. This marriage was blessed with two sons, Sam and Jeff. Both were born in Virginia, and when they were teenagers, Dean took each one on a father-son business trip to the west coast. Dean was a loving, generous, and dutiful son, husband, father, and grandfather. Several times when their school classmates were spending spring break at Disney World, Sam and Jeff were in Nebraska visiting their paternal grandparents in a nursing home.

In 1998, the family moved to Washington, Missouri, where Dean began a second career. He taught math at East Central College for 10 years. He had high standards for his students and was a dedicated and dependable associate professor who had almost perfect attendance on the job. Many of his students were in pre-engineering and pre-nursing programs, and Dean believed they needed solid math skills to assist them in future, critical work with the public. A collapsed bridge or a medicine overdose could be the result of a mistake in math. Shortly after retiring from ECC in 2008, Dean did some volunteer teaching for three months in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and for three weeks in Rabat, Morocco.

Dean was an excellent travel planner, and before the family owned a home computer, all he needed to plan a European vacation was a yellow legal pad, a pencil, guidebooks, and a phone. He and Aneeta visited all 50 states and all of the presidential museums and libraries managed by the National Archives. His personal or business travel took him to five continents. He enjoyed playing the piano, collected thousands of pieces of sheet music, and with the family cat on his lap, completed the daily New York Times crossword puzzle for years, even after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2022. Dean loved playing board games with his children and grandchildren. He had only three rules: read the rules, play fair, and be a good sport. By the time his two sons were about eight years old, they could each play gin rummy and keep score. Dean’s grandchildren were introduced to pick-up-sticks as toddlers. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church of Washington and Washington Elks Lodge.

In addition to his wife Aneeta, Dean is survived by his son Samuel and his wife Nikki of Wentzville; son Jeffrey and his wife Andrea of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; grandchildren Dean Brown, Tess Brown, Greta Brown, and Max Brown; sister-in-law Marsha Bolan, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Rhonda (Mark) Krom, Kalispell, Montana; nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends. He was preceded in death by his parents, brothers-in-law Brian Gilg, Michael Bolan, and Mark Spelts, and sister-in-law Vickie Spelts.

Memorials are appreciated to Franklin County Humane Society (P. O. Box 400, Union MO 63084) or East Central College Foundation (1964 Prairie Dell Road, Union MO 63084). The family is very grateful for the compassionate care Dean received from Stonebridge Senior Living in Hermann, Union Care Center, Mercy Hospital in Washington, Mercy Hospital in St. Louis, St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Hospital in Chesterfield, Dr. Gary Du Montier, and the caregivers at Home Instead in Washington.

A Memorial Service will be held on Saturday, November 14, 2026, at 10:30 AM at Washington Presbyterian Church, followed by a luncheon at 11:30 AM. All are invited. Arrangements in care of Midlawn Funeral Home & Memorial Gardens.