Long lived and Beloved Christian friend and father, Jerry Preston McNeil, was received into the bosom of his heavenly Savior on Friday, October 4, 2024, at 11:05 a.m.
Son of Dewell Gans and Berlie Irene McNeil, surviving husband of his two wives Barbara and Marian McNeil, and devoted father and beloved friend to untold numbers, Jerry leaves behind to cherish his memory his loving son and daughter-in-law, Minor and Deborah McNeil; one great-great-grandchild, four great-grandchildren, two grand-children, one step-daughter, and a host of church and aviation family near his home of 40 years in Owasso, Oklahoma. His sons, Britt and Barry McNeil, and step-grandson Nicholas Applegate predeceased him.
Jerry, who in his long and happy retirement referred to himself as a “recovering engineer,” was born the son of a blacksmith and a seamstress the morning of September 10, 1930, in Texarkana, Texas. He was a child of The Great Depression, and dropped out of high school so that his mother could sign for his early voluntary enlistment in the U.S. Army Air Corps during the World War II and Korean War eras. After serving his 5-year state-side enlistment honorably, Corporal McNeil returned home to Texas with his new wife and children, enrolled in college, and re-enlisted for 10 more years in the Texas Air Ready National Guard, all while beginning a 36-year engineering career with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that lead him around the world building lake reservoirs, locks and dams on the Arkansas and Mississippi river basins, and air bases in Israel.
A truly great and courageous man, Jerry’s only earthly love greater than that for his God, family, friends and country, was his love of flying; a lifelong passion that led him to personally home-build and fly several airplanes. Because of his depression era upbringing, Jerry was notorious for saying that almost anything was “too good to throw away,” so he rarely did. And yet, he has requested that some of his cremated remains be cast into the skies over his beloved Oklahoma prairie home. Mr. Dan Kintner, a nephew of Jerry’s second wife, Marian, whom Jerry taught to fly years ago, has graciously consented to do so, and to allow his son, Minor, to accompany him in his Father’s Piper Pacer which “little Jerry McNeil” had gifted to Dan near the end of his life.
His Earthly interment site will be selected by the family at a later time. Rest in the Peace of the Lord, Daddy. Amen.
Arrangements by A Natural State Funeral Service 2620 West Main Street, Jacksonville, Arkansas 72076. 501-982-3400. Online guestbook available at www.anaturalstatefuneralservice.com
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