BERKEBILE, Stephen Huber

Kingman Daily Miner, Kingman, AZ - Published on July 10, 2013 >> Stephen Huber Berkebile << Stephen graduated to eternal life on Thursday, June 27, 2013, in the presence of his wife Ginny, daughter Meta, brother, niece, nephew and sister-in-law. Stephen had declined in health from lung cancer over the last year and was in hospice care for the last several months. Stephen was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1936 and grew up in McPherson, Kan., with several years back on his grandparents' farm near Bellefontaine, Ohio. After graduating from high school in McPherson, Stephen served several years in Brethren Volunteer Service in Europe to fulfill his Selective Service obligation as a conscientious objector to killing. Stephen also volunteered to be a "guinea pig" at the National Institutes of Health for the testing of various health-related drugs. After completing his service, Stephen journeyed to the West Coast to enjoy the warm sunshine while working at delivering blueprints, driving big rigs for the Post Office and other miscellaneous jobs until getting a degree in electronics and a job with Litton Industries working on the F-104 guidance systems in Phoenix. Stephen's two crowning careers were working on the Apollo moon shots and building a viable TV system. At the beginning of the Apollo program, the capsule trajectories were monitored by three ships located equidistantly around the globe. Stephen helped solve problems with the inertial navigation, laser-Earth location and gyroscope systems on the ship Redstone, the only ship to have 100 percent correct responses and locations. Stephen built a cable TV system for the Green Valley Lake community located in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California. After 15 years of enduring the cold, his arthritis caused the family to move down to the "flatlands" in Highland, Calif. Eventually they moved to Kingman for even warmer weather. Stephen found a property with an airplane runway, although his Cessna never moved from Redlands, Calif. Stephen was too busy helping neighbors with their solar electric problems, working with several pastors in the community with visitation trips, and collecting friends. The difficult part of Stephen's graduating to eternal life was the unanswered question: "Have I done everything I can to invite everyone in my sphere of influence to accept Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Light; to accept Christ as the only way to be reconciled to God because of our sinful natures and to accept Christ as a personal sacrifice who has taken my sins upon Himself so that I can come into the presence of God?" A service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, July 27, at Cedar Hills Community Church, 9188 E. Dally Drive, east of Kingman (Exit 66).
Posted by mhenderson on July 14, 2013

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