[W5SFA] George Wehrung IV Obituary

[jack bates]

Thanks, Gary.  TZ was a fine man.

On Fri, Dec 9, 2022 at 8:26 PM Gary <kf5zrt at protonmail.com> wrote:

> GEORGE WEHRUNG OBITUARY
> George William Wehrung IV or "Bill" was born in Houston, Texas to George
> and Virginia Wehrung on September 25, 1942 and died at age 80 on November
> 20, 2022.
> As a boy he attended Grace Lutheran School. He graduated from Brenham High
> School, class of 1960, and then joined the United States Navy. He was
> aboard the USS Zellars, USS Umpqua, USS Albany and the Nimitz aircraft
> carrier.
> In 1964, while in Radioman "B" school, he met and married Julia Yolanda
> Renteria. They had 3 children together: George William Wehrung V, Virginia
> Agnes Wehrung (died Nov 28, 1965), and Ann Marie Wehrung.
> He loved radios, motorcycles... and I know that he loved me.
> Dad's gift was that he could fix anything mechanical or electrical. As a
> boy on the farm, he was interested in radios and became a ham radio
> operator, enthusiastically listening to and keying morse code to friends
> all over the world on his Virboplex - becoming a radioman in the Navy was
> his perfect career. His many "online" friends knew him as W5TZ.
> Dad had ingenuity. One of his very early accomplishments was being in
> charge of erecting a tower on the hurricane ravaged island of Guam and
> keeping the fuel generators at the correct output necessary to keep a
> continuous signal of communication - quite a feat of engineering despite
> not having a college degree. He maintained and calibrated the Island time
> standard and also independently developed new antenna calibration
> standards. He had Top Security clearance because he dealt with
> cryptological services.
> Dad was also quite resourceful. Before deploying to Vietnam, he attended
> SERE school where a group of men were left without food and given little
> water for a week where the goal is to survive being stranded in enemy
> territory and to evade capture. Before the school dropped its students into
> the desert, Dad slipped two baby rattlesnakes into his vest pocket. When he
> finally got caught by the "enemy" - he was the only one to successfully
> evade capture by springing the snakes upon his unwitting opponent.
> In 1971 he was promoted to Chief, E-7 and was responsible for the highest
> levels of communications, for Flag Officers in Vietnam.
> In 1975 he earned an A.S. in Electrical Engineering from Del Mar College.
> In 1979, while stationed in the Philippines, back in the day of the Atari
> video game, Dad taught himself computer language and he wrote computer
> programs as his hobby. He got very upset when the power went out because
> that meant starting over - days worth of written code.
> After 21 years of Naval service and earning 10 medals, he retired in 1981
> as Senior Chief Radioman, E-8, and came home to Brenham to live on the
> family farm where he grew up as a boy.
> In 1984 he earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M and
> started Brenham Technical Services - a business installing custom gate
> entry systems.
> He very much enjoyed eating the Dairy Queen "Dude" burger with a Dr.
> Pepper and a vanilla ice cream cone to boot.
> He was a member of the Brenham Amateur Radio Club. He also attended
> Brenham Presbyterian Church and Salem Lutheran Church. He is preceded in
> death by his parents and one daughter, Virginia Agnes and is survived by
> his wife of 58 years and his other two children.
> A Celebration of Life service will be held at 3:00 pm on March 1st, 2023
> at Salem Lutheran Church with BBQ meal to follow.
> He was always quick with a warm smile... I love you Dad.
> Ann Marie
>
> Sent with Proton Mail <https://proton.me/> secure email.
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