Page 55 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2024 - Online Magazine

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Despite an auspicious career, Maj. John Edwards, Ret.
says his best move was when he married Josephine.
She has been as much a part of his career as he has.

zone assignment. Jo refers to it as his Swan Song—
though he did serve one more year at Fort Hood
before retiring in 1992.
When Saddam left Kuwait, he set fire to all the oil
fields. Because of the smoke, Edwards remembers
not seeing the sun for 45 days. Due to smoke and
chemicals from burn pits, 25,000 soldiers developed
throat, respiratory, or sinus cancer. Edwards was one
of them. At the age of 46, 28 years ago, his larynx was
removed. He has a laryngectomy stoma. (A stoma
is a permanent hole about the size of a nickel that
enables a person to breathe after the surgery.) Despite
that ordeal, Edwards feels lucky to have survived all
this time.

After retirement, he and his family moved to Lubbock
for a job at TTU where he was Director of Building
Maintenance for eight years, followed by six years in
construction management with a national company.
His final professional stop was12 years back at
TTU as an instructor in facilities management
for the RHIM program. He fully retired in 2019.

On their motorcycles, with Lubbock as
homebase, John and Jo have toured 48 states in
19 years. John enjoys restoring pre-1965 cars/
trucks for himself and others. Jo has taken up
woodworking and has her own shop at their
Papalote home. Among other things, she makes
Fast Track game boards which they use when
they play the game with their friends—most
of whom come from their St. Christopher
Episcopal Church family or from the Strictly
Strength classes at the UMC Activities Center.
Two of their three sons live in Texas (Amarillo
and Dallas) and the other is in Australia.
They have three grandchildren and one great
grandchild.

Lubbock Senior Link 55