Obit of John Harper Thomas (t520) - Grady County, Oklahoma Submitted by: Sandy Carter 06 Jul 2003 Return to Grady County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/grady/grady.html ========================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ========================================================================== The Chickasha Express-Star 21 May 2003 JOHN HARPER THOMAS Funeral Mass for John Harper Thomas, 82, of Chickasha, Okla., will be held at 2 p.m. on Friday, May 23, 2003, at Holy Name Catholic Church. Father Elmer Schwarz will officiate. John Harper Thomas was born July 28, 1920, in Norge, Okla., and died on Tuesday, May 20, 2003, in Oklahoma City, Okla. A private burial, for immediate family only, will be held in Rose Hill Cemetery, under the direction of Ferguson Funeral Home. ========== The Chickasha Express-Star 22 May 2003 JOHN HARPER THOMAS Funeral Mass for John Harper Thomas, 82, of Chickasha, will be held Friday, May 23, 2003, in Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church at 2:00 p.m., with Father Schwarz officiating. John Harper Thomas was born on July 28, 1920, in Norge, Oklahoma and was the son of Grady County pioneers George W. and Hazel B. Thomas. He died on May 20, 2003, in Oklahoma City. Harper attended the one-room school house in Norge through the 5th grade. He graduated from Chickasha High School in 1937 as class valedictorian. During his senior year he won the state interscholastic contest in physics. He attended Wentworth Military Academy his freshman year of college. Following that, he enrolled at the University of Oklahoma where he graduated in June 1941 with a degree in mechanical engineering, and immediately went to work for Shell Oil CO. That fall he returned to OU as an engineering instructor. The following spring, 1942, Harper entered into active duty with the U. S. Navy as an Ensign. After a month of indoctrination at Columbia University, he was sent along with several other former college instructors to start a midshipman school at the University of Notre Dame, which prepared recent college graduates for active fleet duty. After a year, Ensign Thomas was transferred to electronics training at MIT and Harvard and was assigned to the Fleet Service School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he supervised the training of enlisted personnel in the operation of ship-borne radar equipment. In 1945 he was sent to the Pacific for duty on the carrier USS Lexington. On his second day aboard, a single kamikaze aircraft crashed into the island of the ship, killing 56 men and wounding hundreds. After returning to the states, he was on active duty in Washington, D>C> with the Bureau of Ships. He participated in Naval Reserve activities and was a Lt. Commander when he separated with nineteen years of naval service. Returning to civilian life, Harper rejoined the OU engineering faculty as an Associate Professor where he remained until; 1957. During a sabbatical leave to the University of Wisconsin, he obtained his master's degree in mechanical engineering; and he met Mary Ellen Stanton and they were married on June 13, 1951. Their lasting, successful, and happy marriage produced wonderful children. In 1957, Harper and Mary Ellen moved from Norman to Chickasha where he was active in farming and ranching until his retirement in 1994. Harper was a staunch Republican and was Grady County Republican chairman from 1958 to 1962. Following the election of Henry Bellmon as governor, Bellmon chose Harper to be a member of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority and later as a member of the Oklahoma Highway Commission. Following the election of Dewey Bartlett as governor, Harper was retained as a member of the Highway Commission, and he served as its chairman during the last two years of the Bartlett administration. Harper served as president of the Grady County Cattlemen's Association; he was a longtime member of the Rotary Club, and a director of the Oklahoma National Bank for over thirty years. Harper will be remembered as a devoted husband, father, and grandfather, and as a loyal supporter of the OU Sooners and the St. Louis Cardinals. Harper was preceded in death by his brother, Dr. George W. Thomas, Jr., a son, and a grandson. His survivors include his wife, Mary Ellen, of the home; his sister-in-law, Mrs. George W. Thomas, Jr., Seattle; son G. W. Thomas and wife, Bertha, Chickasha; daughter Hazel Helen Thomas and husband, Glen Lockhart, Seattle; daughter Ellen Mary Thomas Weaver and husband, John, Dallas; son John Harper Thomas II and wife, Pei-Pei Chen, Singapore; and son Dr. Chester Stanton Thomas and wife, Dr. Sarah Von Muller, Tulsa. Also surviving are grandchildren Matthew Daniel Thomas, Jeremy Samuel Thomas, Carolyn Faye Thomas, John Harper Weaver, Harry Ryan Weaver, Hayden Thomas Weaver, Vienna Marie Thomas, John Harper CJQ Thomas, Mary Ellen Thomas II, Jacob Harper Thomas, Stanton Miller Thomas, Michelle Lee Pangle, Rory David Murfin, Brian Lockhart and Mindie Justet. He is also survived by cousins Dr. Frank Padberg, Chicago; Max Thomas, Ninnekah; Dr. Mike Thomas, Ninnekah; Ms. Bessie Thomas, Chickasha; and Mrs. Jerry Sneed, Dallas. In lieu of flowers, the family respectfully requests memorials be directed to the USAO Alumni Association's J. Harper and Mary Ellen Thomas Fund, created to honor outstanding students in deaf education and speech pathology. The address is: USAO, 1727 W. Alabama, Chickasha, OK 73018- 5322. A private, immediate family interment will be held at Rose Hill Cemetery under the direction of Ferguson Funeral Home. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Grady County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/grady/grady.html