In loving memory of Verl “Tex” Lallathin Casto, who passed away peacefully in his sleep surrounded by family on Saturday, October 8th, 2022.

See 11 photos

Born on September 9th, 1939 to Duane Verl Casto and Erma “Tyne” Rozina Lallathin, Verl was raised alongside his four sisters (Luane, Maurine, Emalynn, and Ileene) in the small farm town of Bedford, Wyoming. As the only boy in his family, Verl gained his deep-seated country grit working on the farm and milking cows for many years in his youth. High-spirited and somewhat mischievous, everyone in the Star Valley called him “Butch” for his extremely short and evenly cut hairstyle. It was only after moving to Holladay, Utah in his teens, that Verl became known as “Tex” due to his unique country-western style, a nickname that stuck with him for the rest of his life.

Tex attended Olympus High School, where he played football and wrestled on the first undefeated wrestling team in school history. After graduating in the class of 1957, he was enlisted in the Army Reserves in 1959, served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in both New Zealand and in the Western States Mission from 1960-1962, and was honorably discharged from the Army Reserves in 1965. As a very accomplished athlete, Tex wrestled on scholarship for the University of Utah, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1967.

It was also during this time in his youth that Tex married his life-long sweetheart, Meryle Bates, in 1965, and they were later sealed for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake City Temple in 1967. Together they shared more than 42 years on this earth before Meryle’s passing in 2007. They raised seven wonderful children, including Perry, Ted, Matthew, Jason, Adam, Holly, and Sam - and were blessed with the joy of watching their posterity grow, welcoming 32 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren to the family. In 2006, they had the opportunity to serve as senior family history missionaries together in the Salt Lake City LDS Church Office Buildings.

“Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye & a smile on your face but with great purpose in heart”

Although Tex started his storied 28-year educational career at Hillcrest High School, he was most well-known for his time as a teacher and coach at West Jordan High School, for which he is loved and revered even to this day by hundreds of former students and wrestlers. Shortly after retiring from teaching at Copper Hills High School, Tex was inducted into the Utah Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2008. In addition to being an educator and coach, Tex started his own home-building company in the 1970s, and as a very talented concrete tradesman, he continued to do concrete work as a family business throughout the Salt Lake Valley, transferring his core values of hard-work and responsibility to his children.

Tex raised his family in Sandy, Utah, where he served for many years as the bishop of the Sandy Hills Ward (formerly known as the Sandy 14th Ward) in the Sandy Utah North Stake, later retiring to Eagle Mountain where he continued to love, serve and inspire all the people he could reach, old and young, through his selfless acts of service and his famous homemade ice cream, for which he gained another nickname as simply “The Ice Cream Man”.

Ice cream making in his later years would be but one of the countless hobbies and interests Tex would have throughout his life. He was not only an ice cream connoisseur, a chocolatier, and a wood-shop master who crafted everything from toy guns to candy machines, but he was also an avid fisherman, hunter, and hiker, who even discovered and named his own small lake up in the mountains near the Salt Lake Valley.

Tex had an ability to influence people with a unique combination of tough love and charming self-deprecation. He will always be known for the way he expressed genuine love, care, and interest in all those around him, and will be remembered for his selflessness, loyalty, sincerity, kindness, and example in living a life that cherished the true joys of faith, family, and friends.

Tex is preceded in death by his parents Duane and Tyne and wife, Meryle, and survived by his children and their spouses, Perry (Deanna), Ted (Stephanie), Matthew, Jason (Kristen), Adam (Maryann), Holly (John), and Sam (Wendy), along with his 32 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren, as well as all four of his sisters.

Streamed funeral service can be found at the following link for those who are unable to make it in person:

https://webcast.funeralvue.com/events/viewer/79720