Wesley J. Crile

Wes­ley J. Crile, 86, of Deland, Fla., and Mar­ion, who was born Jan. 14, 1926, to Ford S. and Helen G. Crile, died sud­denly on April 22.

He grew up the old­est of six chil­dren and grad­u­ated from Bath High School in 1944. Imme­di­ately upon his grad­u­a­tion, he joined the U.S. Army Corp (Air Force) where he began a love of fly­ing that remained with him his entire life. He later earned his pri­vate pilots and logged hun­dreds of hours of flight time. After his dis­charge form the ser­vice, Wes and his new bride Donna started their fam­ily while he attended the Col­lege of Wooster where he let­tered in foot­ball and earned a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in 1952. That year, he began a teach­ing and coach­ing career in Ohio that included stops at sev­eral high schools, Ash­land Col­lege and cul­mi­nated at Buck­eye Val­ley in Delaware County.

In 1968, the fam­ily moved to Ormond Beach, Fla., where he con­tin­ued to teach and coach before leav­ing the school sys­tem to become Volu­sia County’s first Parks and Recre­ation Direc­tor in 1973. Under his lead­er­ship, the park sys­tem was estab­lished and recre­ational leagues in dozens of sports were cre­ated. Upon his retire­ment in 1989, the Volu­sia County Coun­cil rec­og­nized his extra­or­di­nary ser­vice by nam­ing its newest recre­ation com­plex in his honor. Wes also served the com­mu­nity as an active Red Cross vol­un­teer and board mem­ber, includ­ing a year as chair­man in 1985–1986.

Never one to shy away from chal­lenge, he cel­e­brated his 75th birth­day by mak­ing his first para­chute jump, and his 84th by break­ing the 130 mph bar­rier at the Mario Andretti Dri­ving School. At the time of his death, Wes was excit­edly mak­ing plans to attend his 60th con­sec­u­tive Indi­anapo­lis 500 in May.

He is sur­vived by his wife, Mar­ian; son, Larry (Linda); daugh­ter, San­dra (Don­ald) Crocker; son, Daniel; brother, Gary; sis­ters, Car­olyn Kohberger and Phylis Borts­celler; 10 grand­chil­dren; 17 great-grandchildren; and one great-great grandchild.

Wes was pre­de­ceased by son, David, and broth­ers, Don and Jim.

A cel­e­bra­tion of life will be held Fri­day, May 11, at the Scioto Town­ship Hall in Ostran­der. The open house will begin at 5:30 fol­lowed by a pro­gram at 7 p.m. Any­one wish­ing to share with the fam­ily and friends would be more than welcome.

In lieu of flow­ers, the fam­ily requests that dona­tions be made to Florida’s Coast to Coast Chap­ter of the Amer­i­can Red Cross, 141, White St., Day­tona Beach, FL 32114.

Posted by Staff Reports Obits on May 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.