Jere Jobe

November 19, 1937 - November 11, 2022

Jere was born at Intercommunity Medical Center in Covina, California. He attended the Covina Schools from K -  H.S.  He graduated from Covina High School in 1956.

His father Verne Jobe was an orange grower so their family lived on an orange orchard in a uniquely beautiful ranch home where North View High School now stands.

Jere always had an interest in cars and fixing up old cars. 

After High School he flew planes in the U.S. Navy.   When he had completed his military service,  he worked for Autonetics and at Lockheed.

Barbie Miller Davis was instrumental in playing “cupid” for him and Melinda Tucker ’56.  Both Jere and Melinda were going through a divorce and met when a class reunion was being planned.  They had been married almost 51 years at his passing.  Wanting to get out of the California traffic, etc., They have enjoyed their later years in Somers, MT. 

Right after graduation I joined the navy with the intent of seeing the world.  Uncle Sam decided that I would be more useful to him if I spent the first two years attending various aviation and electronic schools instead of traveling.
The next two years were spent flying jets around the deserts of California and Arizona.  Once my obligation was complete, it was back to school at Mt SAC and Cal Poly, for a while, rearing a family and finding a job.
My first real job was as a test engineer for Lockheed Electronics in L.A., and then on to North American Aviation in Orange County.  I was deeply involved in the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle and Trident submarine programs and many smaller programs for both the military and N.A.S.A.
By the time the 15 year CUHS class reunion came around, I was separated and rearing my two preteen children by myself.  It just so happened that Melinda Tucker was going through a similar experience at that same time.  While Melinda and I did not know each other well during high school, we have had the last 40 years to get better acquainted.  We were relative successful at combining our four children, three dogs and two households into a functional family.
Once we were "empty nesters" and our time was our own, we were able to travel to about every part of the world that we wanted to see.  I believe that our most exciting and interesting trip was the one to Russia at the height of the cold war.
After a heart attack at the age of 47, I decide to stop and smell the roses and started a small hobby type business restoring carburetors and ignitions for antique race cars and old hot rods. In 2003 Melinda and I reached the point that California's congestion and other problems were no longer the way we wanted to live so we relocated to a home on seven acres in a semi rural area of Northwest Montana.