Gerald "Jerry" Gordon Snedigar

10 August 1916 – 14 September 1998

Gerald G. "Jerry" Snedigar, 82, Rapid City, died Monday, Sept. 14, 1998, at his home in Rapid City.

He was born Aug. 10, 1916, at Fort Dodge, Iowa, to Samuel and Nellie (Gordon) Snedigar. As a young boy, he lived with his parents in Huron and was educated in the public schools there. Jerry was active in Boy Scouts and at the age of 14 received the Eagle Scout Badge, which was presented to him by Admiral Byrd. In high school he set a number records in track and field and was a member of the 1934 Huron Tiger basketball team, which won the State A Title. His high school years also saw the beginning of a liftime musical interest, singing baritone. His 1931 quartet was dubiously named the Yipping Alligators.

After high school, he attended two years at the University of South Dakota. In 1938, Jerry came out to the Black Hills and worked as a "call boy" at Mount Rushmore. The next year, he returned to Huron and began working toward his dream of flying. He started taking flying instructions the rate of $11 per hour and soloed eight days after his first lesson. By 1940, he had earned a commercial license and was working as a flight instructor in the civilan pilot training program. In August 1941, he moved to Coleman, Texas, to work as an instructor in the Army Air Corps. When war was declared on Dec. 8, 1941, he received orders to report to Pensacola for Navy pilot training. Within the year, he was working as a ferry pilot, delivering planes from Columbus, Ohio, to San Francisco and San Diego.

While he was in Navy pilot training in Pensacola, he sent a telegram to a young woman he had met while at school in Vermillion. She came down to Florida, where, as the story goes, he met her in his dress whites, took her dancing on the wharf and swept Marjorie Pier of Belvidere off her feet. They were married on Jan. 24, 1943. He and Midge returned to Columbus, Ohio, and to Floyd Bennett Field in New York, where he continued to ferry F4Fs, F6Fs and F4Us until World War II ending in 1945.

After the war, Jerry and Midge returned to Rapid City to make their home. Jerry worked as manger of the Nash garage for a year, but flying was always his first love. He worked as a pilot for serveral local businessmen and by 1947 started his own charter service. Over the next 33 years, he logged close to 20,000 hours, covering an estimated 3 million air miles. He chartered South Dakota businessmen all over the country, made air ambulance trips to Mayo Clinic and the burn center in Texas. He sold aircraft, staffed a repair and maintenance shop, made nightly mail runs in D-18's between Rapid City, Minneapolis and Fayetteville, Ark., building Snedigar Flying Service into an operation that was one of the most competitive and respected charter businesses in the region. In 1979 Jerry retired, and Snedigar Flying Service became what is now Westjet. There was no place where Jerry was quite so at ease, content and blissful as when piloting an airplane.

Jerry was a Shriner and a Mason and a member of the Air Patrol Unit. He and Midge were charter member of Arrowhead Country Club and were avid golfers and bridge players; and always there was barbershop music. He brought together the first barbershop quartet in Rapid City - the Dakotans. He was a chrter member of the Shrine of Democracy Chorus and became both a national and internationl judge, specializing in stage presence.

He is survived the three daughters, Linda Paulsen and Jan Snedigar, both of Rapid City, and Nancy Avalon, Littleton, Colo.; grandchildren Chad Burrows, and Matt and Sara Krizan; and great-grandson Jonathan Burrows.

He was preceded in death by his parents and his wife Midge.