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 Grave
Marker for Ray "Fencepost" Lybeck in the Conrad Memorial Cemetery,
Kalispell (Flathead County), Montana
Ray enlisted at Ft. Bragg, NC and after
completing basic training and jump school, barely squeezed in some time
with the 508th before it was deactivated in November of that same year. |
Ray "Fencepost" Lybeck passed away December Fourth, 2009 at
the Montana Veterans Home in Columbia Falls, Montana. He was born August
12, 1926 on the family homestead east of the sweet grass hills to Karen
Koll and Hans Lybeck.
He attended first through eighth grade at Laird Elementary School near
Chester Montana followed by a year at Mount Ellis Academy in Bozeman.
Ray joined the United States Army in 1943 and did a
three year tour as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne. After the war
he attended welding school in Oregon. Hans and Karen relocated to the
Flathead Valley in 1948 and Ray came as well, he continued to work with
his dad on the farm. In addition to farming he worked on the
construction of Hungry Horse Dam along side of his brother Willard. In
1951 he married Cleona (Tommy) McClelland and they started a dairy in
1952.
Ray served on the Helena Flats School Board for fourteen years, on the
Calvary Lutheran Church Council for nine years, as the area trustee for
the Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch, a member of the State of Montana
Prison Board, a member of the memorial board of Montana Veterans Home, a
board member of the United Way and Red Cross, a member the Kalispell
City County planning board, a member of the Montana Dairyman's
Association, and as a Past President of the Western Dairy Conference. In
1981 he was elected to the state legislature where he served as a
representative for a term followed by two terms as a senator. He retired
from dairy farming in 1999, and continued to farm and ranch in the
Flathead Valley with his sons.
Ray is preceded in death by his parents, Karen and Hans, two brothers
Harold and Clifford, sister Cora, and two sons Dale and Daryl. He is
survived by his wife Tommy, brother Willard and his wife Shirley, sons
Dan and his wife Ann, Duane and his wife Joanne, and Dirk; his daughter
Monica and her husband Greg, 11 grandchildren and numerous nieces and
nephews.
Funeral services will be held at 11:00 A.M. on Monday, December 7, 2009
at Calvary Lutheran Church with the Rev. Kurt Rau officiating. Burial
will follow services at C.E. Conrad Memorial Cemetery with full military
honors. |
