Dianne Skipper Jernigan

Dianne Skipper Jernigan, 80, of Brooksville, MS passed away peacefully surrounded by her family at her residence on Sunday, May 19, 2024. A funeral service is planned for Friday, May 24, 2024, at 11:00 a.m. at Cockrell Funeral Home Chapel.  Interment will follow in Oddfellows Cemetery in Macon, MS. Visitation will be held at the funeral home Friday one hour prior to the service. Memorials can be to Brooksville Baptist Church, P.O. Drawer 438, Brooksville MS  39739. Cockrell Funeral Home is honored to be entrusted with arrangements.

Shirley Dianne Skipper was born on September 4, 1943, to Floyd and Josephine Skipper. She grew up in Picayune, Mississippi with her three big brothers, Kimble, Bienville “B”, and Eugene “Gene”. Their family made their home in Macon moving  when she was in the fifth grade and here she made many lifelong friends. She enjoyed participating in cheerleading, majorette and pageant competitions where she was crowned “Queen of the Forest”. She was also chosen as a Class Beauty during her high school years. Thanks to her friends Roger Permenter and Doris Varner Mitchener, who decided to take her along to ride horses, she met the love of her life, Henry “Hank” Jernigan.  The love story began there when the football star and the cheerleader fell in love. They married right out of high school, on June 4, 1962, and made their home in Brooksville, MS.

Soon after they married, she attended beauty school in pursuit of a cosmetology degree. She had two daughters, Deborah Jo and Kathryn (Kathy) Gean. In these early years is when Dianne’s Beauty Shop was formed, and she had a career for over fifty years. Many friendships were formed there, and many wonderful memories were made during her years in any beauty shop she was working in, doing what she loved to do. She was a great listener and sometimes therapist to her many clients/friends. It was said she could roll hair as fast as lightning and through her love for her many friends she kept their secrets and many stories in her heart. In 1982, she became a Mimi to her first grandchild, Austin, then came Leslie, Lynlee, Kyle, and Haley. She sure loved her grandkids, and they loved her deeply in return. Later, she became Mimi to seven great-grandchildren. She loved Alabama football, and watching her grandkids play softball, basketball, and baseball. She enjoyed growing flowers in her yard and her little dog but most of all she loved God, her family, and her friends. Dianne is preceded in death by her parents and her brothers.

Dianne is survived by her husband, Henry D. “Hank” Jernigan, two daughters, Deborah White  (Mickey) and Kathy Hancock (Keith) ; five grandchildren and seven great grandchildren; numerous nieces and nephews, sisters-in-law, and cousins and all of her “Beauty Shop Friends”.

The family would like to express a very special thank you to her caregivers, who so lovingly took care of her in her last months. They include Katherin Pippin, Geneva Parks, Temeka “T” Pippin and Tisha Koehn in addition to the staff of Legacy Hospice.