- Date Of Birth: May 29, 1937
- Date Of Death: August 2, 2023
- State: Oklahoma
Jerry Ralph Strong of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, passed away on August 2, 2023. Jerry was born in Mountain, Wisconsin, the son of Marie Henrietta (Bartz) Strong and Oscar Benjamin Strong. He grew up on a farm in Mountain with his seven brothers and sisters. When he was eight years old, the family moved to the large five-acre property where his mother grew up. There, he helped raise pigs, chickens, and helped tend to the potato, cucumber, and yellow wax bean crops.
At ten years old, Jerry became the town baseball team’s bat boy. He also worked in filling stations as a young man, as well as assisting in local car garages and mowing yards throughout town, and for three years, he was a paper boy for the Green Bay Press Gazette. In 1951, Jerry graduated from Mountain Grade School, where he played on the baseball and basketball teams. His athleticism and love of sports continued throughout high school, during which time he ran track and played on the football team. He graduated from Suring High School in 1955.
Descending from a long line of proud Veterans, Jerry had ancestors who fought in the War of 1812, the Civil War, and World War I. Just after high school graduation, he heard his country’s call and enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1955, where he trained to be a radar plotting board technician. He spent two years in Love Field, and one year in Vandenberg. He received an honorable discharge in 1959.
In 1961, Jerry re-enlisted in the Air Force, going to special weapons school, becoming an integral part of the Cruise Missile Launch crew in Okinawa from 1962-1964. He was assigned to the Dahl Air Defense Fighter Squadron, 75 FIS Flying Tigers. He received his second honorable discharge in March of ’65.
He went on to have a rewarding career, using his wide array of knowledge in his profession as an Electrical Mechanic Technician for Seagate. He dedicated himself to the company for 28 years until his retirement in January of 2000.
Jerry is preceded in death by his parents, Oscar and Marie Strong, his wife, Hester Lea Strong, and his siblings: Edna Strong, Harry John Strong, Idabel Strong (Bartel), Douglas Lee Strong, Irene Strong, George James Strong, and Robert Louis Strong.
Left to cherish his memory are a host of loving nieces and nephews, and his good friend, Lana Luschen.
