Johnny Ray McElroy passed away on March 13, 2020.  His heart was only 72, but it had been working 100-hour weeks for most of those years before its hydraulics were infected with cancer, and it was tired.  Admittedly, the Coke floats, Lays potato chips, and chicken fried steaks probably did not help.

Johnny charged into the world on December 1, 1947.  The world immediately did its best to knock him off his mortal coil by afflicting him with polio, by having him totter into an oven, and by giving him a life-threatening infection.  But the world was denied, and Johnny went on to wreak havoc.  He graduated from Snyder High School, earning the distinction of being named FFA's Star Farmer of Oklahoma in 1966.  Johnny then attended Oklahoma State University, where he pledged Alpha Gamma Rho Fraternity.  He served as Southwest District FFA Vice President as a freshman and State FFA President as a sophomore.  He must not have been a very impressive specimen as a freshman, however, because once, when he went to the stadium to pick up a set of football pads to wear on an OSU Homecoming Parade float, the OSU football equipment manager, confused by the request, asked Johnny if he was on the team.  When Johnny said "No", the equipment manager said "Oh, thank God!"

He could not spell worth a lick, but Johnny somehow managed the distinction of being named Outstanding Graduating Man of Oklahoma State's 1970 graduating class.  Still, that was not the crowning achievement of his college years.  Impossibly, the misbehaving rascal earned the attention of a prim, redheaded, OSU coed from Cyril who—fortunately for him—knew even less about the unrelenting demands of farming than he did about spelling.  He wed Dana Downing on April 17, 1971.

Firmly convinced that sloth is the most tragic of sins, Johnny was always in a hurry to be doing .  He spent all of his time off working.  He said he wanted to wear out, not rust out.  But our strengths are also our weaknesses, and Johnny's disdain for idleness led to its own problems.  Sometimes he simply moved too fast.  Once, his wife Dana was uncharacteristically pulled over for speeding east of Memphis, Texas.  The officer, after glancing at her license, looked up with a smile and asked, "How's Johnny?"

From Johnny's perspective, there was no clear line between family and farming.

To his mind, each family member was a facet of a shared identity and heritage, and the souls of generations were tethered to the soil of the family farm, Tumbleweed Ranch.  Plowing a field honored past generations and provided for future generations.  He began farming and ranching full-time the final semester of his senior year in college after his father was diagnosed with cancer.  He took 21 credit hours that last semester, put his pilot's license to work by flying home on the weekends to manage Tumbleweed Ranch, and still earned a perfect 4.0.

Johnny had great, often impulsive, enthusiasms, both in business and in play.  His creative and enterprising fervor found him selling cotton module builders from Georgia to Mexico, authoring theatrical productions at church, earning two patents on his livestock trailer inventions, carving dirt bike trails out of pastureland, selling pink granite boulders to landscapers far beyond the Wichita Mountains, lighting Christmas trees on mountaintops, and designing cattle trailers for ranchers from Missoula to Montgomery.  I ask you, has your living room ever housed office cubicles?  He struck out sometimes, but he sure knew how to swing for the fences.

Johnny was a character, comically simple and inscrutably complex.  Propriety and convention meant little to him, and he was renowned for his lack of patience.  He lived close to his emotions, which shifted with the Oklahoma winds.  He had an old country ballad to accompany every mood.  Roger Miller, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Johnny Cash; they lived on in his baritone voice.  He lived with tremendous vigor.  He was a charismatic influencer, albeit with the discretion of a tornado.  He was not respectful of child labor laws or fashion cues.  Or the state of Texas in general.  He was a character with character, and we love such people because they enrich our lives.

He leaves behind a family that he was mostly proud of.  He is survived by his wife of 48 years, Dana; sister, Linda Sue Fletcher and her husband, Wayne; sister, Kay Caffey and her husband, Herb; sisters-in-law, Joy McElroy and Barbara McElroy; sister-in-law Denise Gore and her husband, David; daughter, Megan Pope and her husband, Corey; son, Braden McElroy and his wife, Lisa; and his four grandchildren: Mara, Riley, Creed, and Rowan.

He was preceded in death by his father and mother, Homer and Gladys McElroy and his brothers, Bob McElroy and Doyle McElroy, who are no doubt glad to welcome another hand to help work those heavenly fields.

Johnny was fond of a Teddy Roosevelt quote: "It is not the critic who counts; nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Johnny certainly strove valiantly.  He was familiar with the dust and sweat of effort, and he pursued with great enthusiasm those causes he felt were worthy.  Many of those causes were people.  He was keenly interested in people.  They were a source of kinetic energy for him.  Strangers did not maintain that status very long.  When dining out, he could not tolerate sitting at a table when there were so many new and interesting folks spiraling around him.  For years, he invited young men from France into his home as foreign agricultural exchange students, sometimes failing to give Dana any advance notice whatsoever that she would be hosting a college student for the next, oh, six months or so.  Most recently, as you know, his social outlet masqueraded as Tumbleweed Territory Real Estate.

Johnny's favorite enterprise was helping youth. He related to kids and invested tremendously in them.  His 4-H and FFA speech kids, the youth at church, the young men of Alpha Gamma Rho, any student who had the proper sense to attend Oklahoma State, and his grandkids: Mara, Riley, Creed, and Rowan.  In recent years, he brought his horses to the Snyder Park for kids to ride on Sunday afternoons.  If he encountered a four-year-old, he would introduce himself by asking, "So, tell me about yourself…are you married or single?"

Some of us have been the recipients of his investment of attention.  Maybe you.  So, in the end, whether or not Johnny spent himself in a worthwhile cause and achieved the victory Roosevelt spoke of really depends upon you.  However, based on the honor you have conveyed to him with your care and condolences, I think we know the answer.

A private family service will be held at Snyder First Baptist Church on Thursday, March 19 ^th. To avoid overcrowding and encourage social distancing, the family will receive friends and family during an extended visitation time on Wednesday, March 18 ^th from 5 - 8 p.m. at Becker-Rabon Funeral Home in Snyder, OK.  Due to current health concerns, the McElroy Family wishes to stress to dear family and friends not to feel obligated to attend, especially those considered vulnerable to the Covid-19 (Corona) virus, as your health safety is of upmost importance to our family. First Baptist Church Snyder intends to live stream the funeral service on their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/snyderfirstbaptist/ .

In lieu of flowers, the family requests Johnny's legacy be continued through donations made to his beloved Oklahoma FFA Association using the following link: http://okffa.org/page.aspx?ID=24 (via the okffa.org website).  Click on the " Donate Now " box and follow the easy instructions - Click " I would like to dedicate this donation ." Click " Type of Tribute " ; " In Memory Of " .  Then under " Tribute Name " please type "Johnny McElroy Memorial Trust " so your donation may be applied to the Johnny McElroy permanent endowment.   Alternately, donors can also make a gift by check by simply making the check payable to the " Oklahoma FFA Foundation " and notating " Johnny McElroy Memorial Trust " on the memo line.  Mail to the Oklahoma FFA Foundation, Attn: Kendall Brashears, 1500 W. Seventh Ave., Stillwater, OK  74074.