David Leroy Humphrey, age 87, passed away on Monday, December 1. After leaving Austin Community College in 2009, he spent his last few years at home with his wife, Patsy, and died quietly surrounded by family.
He went by Leroy. He was born to Harvey Leroy Humphrey and Louisa May Gregg Humphrey on March 9, 1927, in Blanchard, Oklahoma. It took him 9 years, but he finally got to Texas when his family moved to Corpus Christi.
He misled the US Army about his age and enlisted in 1944 at the age of 17, serving two tours of duty in the Army Infantry, first in Hawaii and later in Korea. He was honorably discharged in 1948.
He intended to take a short vacation and re-enlist for a third tour but never made it back. Instead, he went to work in the oil fields of South Texas and later followed the oil boom of the 1940s to the Big Spring/Odessa/Midland area. There he met Patsy Vale Neff; they married in Vealmoor on July 27, 1951.
Always a bit independent and resourceful, he was well suited to the role of an oil field welder. He was on-call at all hours and sometimes was on the job site for days so that he was ready when the drilling crew needed his services to "cut-off the pipe" or some other standard operation.
In the early 1960s, he started teaching welding part time at Howard County Junior College. This proved to become a career change as be began teaching welding full time at Gary Job Corps Center in 1964 and went on to become the chairman of the department.
In 1971, he moved to the Austin branch of Central Texas College where he built the welding program that later became a part of Austin Community College. At ACC, he served as an instructor as well as chairman of the department where he further developed the program to include more academic courses such as Metallurgy, Statics, and Strength of Materials. Some former students now lead that program today as instructors.
Leroy is survived by his wife of 63 years, Patsy Vale Neff Humphrey, son David and wife Karen, son Steven and wife Theresa, daughter Sandra and husband David Moore, seven grandchildren and ten great grandchildren. His 60th birthday present, grandson Eric Steven Humphrey, preceded him in death.
The family recommends that those who wish to remember him make a contribution to the Alzheimer’s Association. Several methods are available at http://www.alz.org.
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