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George W. Wehrung Chappell Hill, TX QCWA # 19766 |
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 Vibroplex - 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.