Funeral service for MSG (Retired) Barry Martin Quensel will be 2:00 p.m. Friday, January 3, 2025 in Becker-Rabon Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Cyndi Tillery officiating.

Private family burial will be in Fort Sill National Cemetery.

The service may be viewed by following the livestream link at www.beckerfuneral.com or by visiting the Becker-Rabon Funeral Home Facebook page.

MSG (Retired) Barry Martin Quensel died Tuesday, December 17, 2024 at home in Lawton, Oklahoma at the age of 78 after a brief illness.

He was born May 18, 1946 in Bloomington, Illinois to Warren Pershing and Margaret (Lebkeurcher) Quensel. His father was a teacher and the family lived in various small towns around Bloomington until Barry was entering high school. At that time his father took a position at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb Illinois. Barry graduated from high school there in 1964. He was active in band and cross-country track, receiving letters in both. It was during his time in high school that he became interested in model railroading and scale models. He worked during the summers for Creston Industrial Models, a firm that made accurate scale models used as supporting evidence in court cases. Upon graduation he attended Shimer College at Mt. Carroll, Illinois for two years. For his third year of college, he transferred to Illinois State University in Bloomington-Normal. It was here that he met his wife, Susan, whom he married in 1969.

In the summer of 1967 he joined the United States Army as a Nike Hercules Missile Fire Control Crewman. He spent four years on active duty, with duty stations in Chicago and Germany. Upon completion of his tour he returned to Bloomington and enrolled in Illinois State University. In 1974 he completed his degree in Industrial Tech, specializing in computer controlled machining. Although this completed his formal education he never stopped studying. His areas of study were computer languages, network administration and the Bible.

Upon completion of his degree, he rejoined the Army; however, this time instead of Air Defense he chose Field Artillery. He had several tours of duty at Fort Sill where he was a first a gunnery instructor, then a TACFIRE instructor, and finally the NCOIC of the Command and Control Division. In this final position at Fort Sill he was the subject matter expert on the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS) and other fire support digital devices as well as being on the New Equipment Fielding Team for AFATDS. Between these tours of duty he was assigned to Germany, Korea and Turkey. He returned from Turkey and retired at Fort Sill in 1990.

After retirement, he worked for several defense contractors finally coming to TECMASTERS in Lawton, OK in 1999. After returning to Lawton he was involved with the model train clubs in Duncan (SWORA) and Lawton, running his trains both at home and on the club layouts and building scale structures. He also served as the Oklahoma representative for the Mid-Continent Division of the National Model Railroad Association for several years.

He was the recipient of numerous awards and decorations during his military career. He was also a life member of the American Legion. He is survived by his wife, of the home; his brother-in-law, Charles Wilson; two cousins, Darcy Anderson and Ricky Drexler and an Aunt Phyllis Quensel.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Oklahoma Model Railroad Association & Museum. The web site is omratrains.org. Checks may be mailed to PO Box 18654, OKC, OK 73154