Leroy Willard Kuest

Leroy Kuest, a native of Odessa, died Saturday, February 21, 2015, at Rockwood at Hawthorne care center. Born in Odessa on August 25, 1918, he was the last of seven children of Julius and Rosena Kuest, who had homesteaded in the area before 1900. Leroy graduated from Odessa High School, worked for the local Richfield service station and in 1942 joined the U.S. Air Force.

Throughout World War II, he was stationed in eastern England near Bury St. Edmunds, where he was a crew chief maintaining B-17 bombers – a member of the 331st squadron of the 94th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force. At a dance...