Johnny Ray Howard
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Longtime Lawton, resident Johnny Ray Howard died in a single-car accident on April 12, 2021, near Sterling. He was 69.
John was born Nov. 1, 1952 in Salinas, Kansas to Ross Benjamin Howard and Betty Jean (MacGraw) Howard. He moved with his family to Albany, Oregon in the late 1950s where he was raised. In 1969, he moved to Saint Ignatius, Montana and graduated from high school the following year.
Shortly after graduation, he joined the U.S. Army and was sent to Fort Sill and trained as a radar repairman. He met his future wife ? Nancy Lee Gentry -- while she was working at a Lawton cafe. They married on March 18, 1974. After his training, the couple moved to Okinawa where John served out his enlistment. Upon leaving the Army, they moved to Mississippi and in 1978 they returned to Lawton.
John graduated from Lawton's Cameron University and immediately went to work for Hughes Aircraft which developed an artillery counter-battery radar that was initially fielded in 1983 to U.S. Marines in Beirut. John taught soldiers on Fort Sill how to repair the radar and went on to become a Fort Sill Army civilian employee working as an instructor before retiring a few years back.
John is survived by his two sons: Mark and Steve Howard; three granddaughters: Carissa, Cassidy, and Serenity Howard; two sisters: Sandra (Howard) Lillard and MaryAnn (Howard) Nodurft and a brother, Mike Howard.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Nancy, sister, Linda Jo Howard, brother, Jackie Otis Howard, mother, Betty Jean Howard, and father, Ross Benjamin Howard.