James G. "Stormy" Kimrey

Born July 23 1936 to W.E. and Ruth Kimrey. Stormy had one brother W.E. Kimrey Jr who was 11 1/2 years older than him. After his birth at San Angelo Clinic, the family moved to Royalty, Texas, a small town between Monahans and Grand Falls, Texas.

At a very young age, while living a short time in Royalty, he picked up the nickname “Stormy Weather”. The family lived close to a car repair shop, and he was always going over and visiting with the owner in the garage. He really wasn’t sure why the owner tagged him “Stormy Weather” but the song Stormy Weather, by Lena Horne, was popular at that time, so he surmised that was where the fella got the name.

His mother and dad did call him Stormy Weather after he was tagged with the name but it was soon just dropped to Stormy. He said that most of his school years in San Angelo he went by James, which he said he never liked. It wasn’t until after his freshman year at Texas A&M, when calling people by their nicknames became popular, that the name Stormy returned to him. When coming back to San Angelo, the name had stuck and people from A&M were having trouble finding him by James so he officially changed his name in the phone book.

Stormy’s dad was a pipeline contractor who had to follow the work which meant the family moved around a great deal until Stormy was of school age. He credits the bug for travel to his moving often as a young child. In school, he made lifelong friends, and a few of you are here in person, the rest in spirit. In his words, he said he ran with some “good campers”, namely Roy Green, Joe Wicker, Joe Hudgins, Coco Hartman, James Welch and Robert Keller.

His first travel adventure was a trip the group decided would be to Big Bend for a week to 10 days each year after they received their driver’s license. As Sophomores in High School, Stormy was joined by Hudgins, Keller and Polo Bossie (who acted as the translator) made their first international trip to Mexico City for 10 days.

This led to dreams of bigger and longer trips. Between their Junior and Senior year, the group decided to tour all of the National Parks on the western side of the U.S. Stormy, James Welch and Robert Keller planned this 17 day trip culminating in Alaska. This trip came with a challenge. Stormy’s father told the boys that if they saved up $200 for the trip, he would purchase a new car for Stormy’s mother (Meme) and allow the boys to break it in on the trip. At that time, it was common knowledge that breaking in a car meant you could not drive it over 50 mph for the first 500 miles. They saved the $200 and as his parents did his whole life, followed through with the car and off the boys went to Alaska. Leaving at midnight on July 1, 1953, the trio headed out on the first leg of the trip, the Carlsbad Caverns at 50 mph.

They camped at each of the western National Parks before crossing the Canadian border at Glacier National Park. In Canada, they travelled to Calgary and there they discovered there were no paved roads in Alaska at that time. The gravel roads would have destroyed Meme’s new car so the trio wisely pivoted and decided to travel on paved roads across Canada. They headed east and reentered the U.S. in International Falls, Minnesota and headed back to Texas. They concluded the trip in the 17 days they planned, covered 3,000 miles and proudly noted they only slept in 3 hotels on the entire trip.

Upon graduation from high school, Stormy was back on the road. Along with Joe Hudgins and Joe Wicker, Stormy headed to the Indianapolis 500 and then on to Washington D.C. This became known as the east coast tour.

Returning home that summer, he was preparing to attend Texas A&M, where his father wanted him to attend as he considered it the best engineering school. Preceding his departure for A&M, a fateful ping pong game occurred at the YMCA that summer. He met a beautiful young lady who would become the love of his life. Her name, Pat Briant. He began to date Pat in August of 1954, the month he left for Aggieland. By December, as often happened with long distance relationships at that time, with Pat still in high school and Stormy 300 miles away at college, the relationship just didn’t seem to work out.

Pat enjoyed her time in high school which was not short of other suitors to fill Stormy’s shoes. Stormy on the other hand, tried to make the best of the situation by turning his focus to making grades so he could stay in school, invest his time in “B” Infantry and his lifelong friends he was making as well as getting to the finish line and becoming an Aggie!

It was at the completion of a school mandated survey field course in Junction that Stormy decided he could balance all of his life but missed Pat dearly. He called her and asked if she would be interested in dating again. Stormy knew he could win her over if she would only say yes. Their dating again was never in question when he found out one of the boys she was dating would not buy ice for her coke since it cost an extra 5 cents. Stormy cemented his position in Pat’s life and reentered the dating world with her when he confidently ensured her, in all his bravado, “You will never go without ice in your coke when you are with me!”

With such strong conviction and passionate wooing, Pat and Stormy started dating again and over the next few years, Pat made numerous trips with Mr. and Mrs. Kimrey to College Station. With the completion of college clearly in sight and no longer a question, Stormy proposed to Pat and they were married on December 30, 1958.

As a married couple, Pat made the most of a 2 room apartment in College Station as Stormy finished up his last semester, taking his final 2 courses while working for the City Engineer. He graduated and received his commission from Texas A&M in May of 1959. Following graduation, Stormy returned to San Angelo in June of 1959 and took a job working for the Texas Highway Dept., awaiting his first assignment to Fort Benning, GA. Pat and Stormy brought big news with them that June as they announced Pat was pregnant with their first child, Mark.

In February of 1960, pulling a U-haul trailer with a 2 month old Mark in tow, Lieutenant Stormy Kimrey and his family headed to Fort Benning for 6-months. While in Fort Benning, Stormy completed his Officer Training and Jump School before returning to San Angelo and rejoining the Highway Dept. He entered the Army Reserve to fulfill his commission. He was assigned to the 90th Infantry Division under the command of one General Earl Rudder,(a name a few Aggies may recognize) and assigned to a tank company in Sonora. Two years later, Stormy took a leave of absence from the Highway Department and volunteered for Flight School at Fort Rucker, Alabama.

Now as a captain, Stormy, Pat and Mark headed to Alabama. He spent a year in flight training, flying mostly fixed wing planes and helicopters. Upon graduating from flight school and receiving his wings, Stormy once again came home to San Angelo. While in flight school, the 90th Infantry Division had been retired and Stormy was reassigned to the 980th Engineer Battalion in Wichita Falls. He served as a Battalion Aviation Officer until he was moved into the position of Staff S-3 Officer with units in Lubbock, Waco, Dallas & Wichita Falls. He was also in charge of projects in Ft Polk, Ft. Hood, Ft. Sill, Ft Chafee and other posts. Major Kimrey retired after twenty years of active and reserve duty in the United States Army.

While his active and reserve duty kept him busy, it did not stop him from attending Texas A&M football games. In 33 years, Stormy and Pat missed only 3 games and only due to a car wreck. That included both home and away games!! He and Pat moved to College Station for football seasons, starting in 2013. Just to see Johnny Manziel play, of course.

His devotion to Aggie games was only matched by his “lunch bunch” of 25 years, originally and affectionately known as the “Kimrey Mafia”. It was common for 10 to 12 of his buddies to frequent local eating establishments, each day different, each week a repeat of the former week unless the restaurant closed or a meal outside the bunch altered the schedule with a convincing argument.

Stormy was always giving back to his San Angelo and Texas A&M Communities. He served as Co-Chairman and Chairman of Fiesta Del Concho. He was on the board for the Lighthouse for the Blind, the Executive Board of the Association of Former Students, the Board of the 12th Man Foundation, the San Angelo School Board, the West Texas A&M Board, a Deacon at First Baptist Church, and many more. He also took great pride in the design and construction oversight of the Celebration Bridge on the Concho River in downtown San Angelo.

He served professionally as a Registered Licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Texas. He founded SK Engineering/Labs in 1977 and sold it to Russell Gulley in 2004 (it remains today as SKG Engineering), and founded and owned Horizon Travel and the Reproduction Center.

His travels, ignited in his youth, carried Stormy to all 50 states and over 100 countries. He made many of these trips with his close friend, Bill Davis, when wives weren’t interested in some countries, Tibet, India, Iceland, South America, Thailand, China and others. But the wives did make some trips to these same countries.

He always enjoyed sending the daughters and mom on their annual mother/daughter trips, while he would take the “sons” on fishing trips to Costa Rica. They fished Costa Rica for over 20 years. The daughters still make their annual trip every year.

Some of his later and more memorable feats included him summiting Mount Kilimanjaro alongside his son Mark; bungee jumping off Victoria Falls; and flying in a Russian MIG to view the edge of the atmosphere, all in his 60’s. All great memories, but he would tell you, his greatest trip was the 65 years of life he travelled with his best friend and love, Pat (Mimi) as his bride.

He and Pat also managed to add 2 more children to their family. Their second child, Kristi was born in 1964 followed by Kimilee, born in 1968. There is 4 years separating each child, attributed to and blamed on the Winter Olympics.

He was blessed with 7 grandsons: Ty, Chad and Hunter Levi Kimrey; Hunter Burkey; Mason and Garrett Pelham and Kimrey Gentry.

Most recently he was blessed with 5 great grand children: Hunter Burkey’s two children, Cassius and Apollo Burkey; Chad Kimrey and Susie Anaya’s two children, Emma Stormy and Luke Kimrey; and Hunter Levi and Brooke Kimrey’s son, Levi James “LJ” Kimrey.

Reflecting on his life, he asked that it be shared with everyone how much of a baseball fan he was growing up. It was Lou Gehrig’s last public appearance, his hero’s last speech, that summed up Stormy’s life story, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth”.