August 3, 2023
By News Director Jared Atha
Funeral services were held for an American hero from western Oklahoma recently.
80-year-old Thomas Edmund Weichel Sr. of Colony, who passed away on July 18, was a Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree from Colony.
Weichel was born just south of Colony on November 24, 1942, to Edmund and Minnie Mabel Sappington Weichel. He grew up working on the family farm. He graduated from Colony High School in 1958. In the spring of 1964, he received a Bachelor’s degree in Math and Physics from Southwestern Oklahoma State University. That same year, he married Elaine Francis Willits of Oney.
Weichel accepted an offer of employment with NASA and he and Elaine moved to the Houston area where he worked on various unmanned and manned space programs, including the Apollo Program, which put men on the moon.
His last mission was work on Apollo 13, for which he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for the team’s efforts to return the Apollo 13 crew to earth.
Weichel moved back to the Colony area to raise and provide his family by farming and ranching. He also worked for Southwest Oklahoma Development Association and taught Physics and Math at Caddo Kiowa Technology Center.
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