Charles Wayne Palmer

Wayne was born in Martinsburg WV and graduated from Martinsburg High School in 1948. He enlisted in the Air Force and married Phyllis Reed. Wayne spent 4 years in the Air Force, returned to West Virginia. Where he got a job working for the railroad with the Hugh machine shops, then he got a job with Florida Gas, a 4,300 hundred mile natural gas pipeline, and moved to Orlando, Florida. He was very active in Shriners for most of his life, and was a proud Mason, renewing his membership again this year.

At Florida Gas, he learned to work with computers, the big room sized computers that filled a whole room, he loved it enough to do it the rest of his life. His career brought to Houston, when Florida Gas was bought out by Houston Gas, there he stayed, and worked for great companies along the way, HP (Hewlett Packard), EDS (Electronic Data Systems), And finally Enron, before he retired. AT Enron he switched to working on small desktop computers, helping and training top Executives, to use all the new programs. He rubbed shoulders with all the top executives, Wayne loved this and flourished. Everyone in the building (all 50 floors) knew him and relied on him to keep their computer running.

In Houston, he became a big fan of country music, Gilley’s was the rage, at the time. Boots and Western wear was the “in” thing, the big 3 week Houston Rodeo was the place to be, all decked out in Western wear, Boots, Hats, fancy Western Sports jacket, but especially the big belt buckles. Wayne had it all, and dressed the part. Mickey Gilley, George Strait, the Judds were groups everyone wanted to see.

During football season, once in a great while, we’d go to football watch parties, at the local pub, and have a great time, a lot of his fellow workers from Enron were their cheering on their favorite team. He got to watch the Astro’s win the World Series. He loved to watch the Super Bowl, especially on his big screen TV. Those were the good old days!

In retirement, he loved his two big lot home, riding his big lawn mower over his one acre lot, or tilling his garden, but most of all, his big office, attached to the 3 car garage, he would work on computers into the night, helping anyone and everyone with their computers to get them going. He made many many friends, fixing their computers. He loved computers.

Rest in Peace, Our Friend!