{"id":207283,"date":"2026-06-25T13:35:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T18:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=207283"},"modified":"2026-06-25T13:35:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T18:35:43","slug":"merritt-e-beech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/06\/25\/merritt-e-beech\/","title":{"rendered":"Merritt E. Beech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Merritt E. Beech, 68, of Scott, passed away on Thursday, June 25, 2026, at Stillwater Hospice Center of Fort Wayne, Indiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Merritt was born January 21, 1958, in Van Wert to Harold and Betty (Myers) Beech, who both preceded him in death. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"280\" height=\"382\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Merritt-Beech-6-2026.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-207285\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Merritt Beech<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Surviving Merritt are his brother Mark (Tracy) Beech of Scott; his niece and nephews, and many great nieces and nephews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to his parents, Merritt was preceded in death by his brothers, Matt and Mitch Beech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Merritt was a 1976 graduate of Wayne Trace. He continued on to work for BF Goodrich from 1976 to 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He was an avid fan of dirt track and horse races. You could often find Merritt after retirement enjoying fishing and golfing with many friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Preferred memorials are to be made to Stillwater Hospice Center of Fort Wayne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Online condolences may be expressed at <a href=\"https:\/\/cowanfuneralhome.com\">cowanfuneralhome.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Merritt E. Beech, 68, of Scott, passed away on Thursday, June 25, 2026, at Stillwater Hospice Center of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Merritt was born January 21, 1958, in Van Wert to Harold and Betty (Myers) Beech, who both preceded him in death. Surviving Merritt are his brother Mark (Tracy) Beech of Scott; his niece and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obituaries"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-13 05:59:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207286,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207283\/revisions\/207286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}