Freelon F. Stanberry

CW4 Freelon F. Stanberry, Age 79, passed from this life on September 15, 2018. Freelon was born in Bryson City, North Carolina. At the age of 17, he was married to Elloyse Owen in South Carolina. They were married for 62 years. Throughout their marriage, they lived in many places such as North Carolina, Yuma, Alabama and Okinawa. They had 3 children Alan, David and Freeda. In 1975, they moved to Alaska. During his military career, he served as an enlisted soldier for 9 years and then was appointed as a Warrant Officer while serving an additional 17 years in the US Army. He served 3 tours in Vietnam in Special Forces and received many recognitions throughout his career such as the Master Parachute Badge, Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Bronze Star Medal and many others. After retirement from the military, Freelon began second career and retired as the manager the bus barn for the Anchorage School District. Freelon had an active life where he loved traveling, enjoying the outdoors, gambling in casinos, acquiring new gadgets (his more recent favorite was a collection of drones) and driving his boat at full throttle. He loved to say, “We are not here for a long time, we are here for a good time.” He had many other sayings that he loved to tease his grandchildren with. His family describes as generous, loving, hysterical and quite ornery. He will be dearly missed by his 3 grandchildren; Devon Stanberry, David (Bo) and wife Miranda Stanberry, Kevin Stanberry and his great-grandchildren Macy LaRae, Lyndi Rose, Harbor Dylan and a new one on the way. Graveside services will be held with full military rites at Aurora Cemetery (1096 N. Wasilla-Fishhook Road, Wasilla, Alaska) at 1:00pm on Friday, September 21, 2018