John Allen Glona

John attended St. John Lutheran School and was confirmed in the church. He played in all the school sports and baseball at East End Little League. After moving to Ft. Bend he graduated from Clements High School and continued his education in Phoenix, Arizona at Air Conditioning school. When John finished technical school he worked at a couple air conditioning companies and then ran his own business for about 5 years. John worked by himself unless he needed help on big jobs, and at that time would get his dad to help since that was free labor. After dissolving his own air conditioning company, he worked for Walgreens for 15 years, and when they sold his division he continued to work with the same stores and contractors at CBRE.

From early on he liked to go to the farm to work, hunt, and build big bon fires, even if it was 100 degrees. He carried that tradition on at home by bringing wood from the farm and having a fire in the driveway chiminea.

When John was 21 and working for Avery Air Conditioning, he was diagnosed with a very rare cancer, “Epithelioid Sarcoma”. This cancer mainly attacks young men and has a life expectancy of 88 months (7 years 4 months). He was going to have it taken out and not tell anybody until the doctor told him he had to have someone there. Until the end he wanted to keep this quiet and tried not to tell anyone unless people saw the scars from the 20-plus surgeries. Once he passed the seven year mark, he bragged to the people who knew about the cancer that he had outlived his expiration date. He was proud when his MD Anderson team told him that he had lasted longer than anyone else who had the disease.

His proudest family moments were the birth of his two sons. The oldest son, Brett Allen, was born January 27, 1991 and John Cody “Coco” on November 9, 1995. Coaching the boys in baseball was always fun for John and he looked forward to each season. Helping cook at charity events and fundraisers for the local sports teams was his favorite past time as a way to give back to the community.

His idea of enjoying life was getting together with friends in his garage watching a big screen TV with a cold beer. He wanted to be home with his boys so they could come out there with him. He had season tickets for the Houston Texans from the very start and was a “Big Tailgater”. John also enjoyed helping others on any project but had a hard time accepting help. If he could use a chainsaw, hammer, or some power tool, he was going to be the first volunteer to help you. The past five years John’s primary passion was to visit every National League and American League baseball park in the United States with his best friend, Kippy “Joanie”, who also had the same goal.