Emile Jackson Bowers

Emile Jay Bowers, currently residing in Cary, NC, after 92 years of life, was called home by God on August 14th, 2025 with his wife of 70 years by his side. Adoringly known as "Papa", "Dad", "Friend", and a true family patriarch, he spent 92 years of life conveying his love of family, cherishing all his friendships and showing a unique compassion to all people in all circumstances.

Jay was born in Mobile, Alabama on September 18,1932 to Eulalie and Sam H. Bowers. After graduating from Laurel High School in 1951 he joined the US Navy Reserves where he trained Navy pilots in how to use electronic equipment to detect enemy submarines during the Korean War. He was honorably discharged in 1954.

On September 11, 1954, he married Nancy Rogers who first caught his eye in 1946 soon after his family moved to Laurel, Mississippi at the church hayride. It would take him five more years to convince her to be his girlfriend, and they remained married for over 70 years.

He graduated from Mississippi State University with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1957 where he was inducted into the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society and was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. In 1994 he completed the University of North Carolina Executive Education MBA school.

He and Nancy moved from Laurel in 1957 with their first child, to accept a position with Western Electric Company as a development engineer. In 1961 he was accepted into the 2 year Bell Lab Communication Development Training Program at Duke University Graduate School. Upon completion in 1963 he started work for Bell Labs as a Logic Design Engineer and remained with Bell Labs for the next 27 years serving in various system design engineering roles for projects ranging from weather satellite programs, radar signal processors and telemetry systems ending as the Department Head for Network Operations Systems.

In 1990 he moved to Cary, North Carolina to create the Advanced Software Construction Center, a new software development process for AT&T Network Systems, subsequently purchased by Lucent Technology.

He formally retired in 1999 as Vice President of Development for Wandel & Goltermann.

Jay was the proud father of three wonderful children, Gary (Beth), Sharon (Wayne) and Janet (Paul) and “Papa” to 8 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren. He enjoyed the rare blessing of having met, held and loved his great-grandchildren, the youngest who is 6 months old. For many years he was surrounded by their love, as the entire family gathered many times each year to share each other’s lives and for over 40 years gathered annually at the beach, most often in Emerald Isle, NC. It was there he got to laugh at our antics, correct our foibles, teach each new grandchild the importance of the five P’s, “Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance”, and smile lovingly as we created another year of memories together. Taking pictures of Jay was incredibly easy and rewarding. He was either laughing, smiling or had a tear of love in his eye since family was his soul and passion.

During his retirement years, Jay enjoyed a passion for tennis playing. You could always find him every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings on the tennis court playing with his buddies until the age of 89! Jay loved to read nonfiction and history. His buddies would meet monthly to discuss the book of the month but more often than not ended with a discussion of politics. Watching March madness, college football, Mississippi State baseball and grand slam tennis brought him great joy once he had to hang up his racquet. He had a singular talent for remaining calm in expressing his ideas, while all others quietly lost their cool around him. Some of you might recognize the prior sentence as like a familiar poem. Jay loved poetry and was often citing expressions from Rudyard's Kipling's poem "If". He used many phrases from this poem to guide, and especially, to encourage his grandchildren, who he loved dearly.

Friends and family are invited to attend a graveside service on Saturday, August 23,11am, at Apex Cemetery (207 W Moore Street) followed by a celebration of Jay's life at his home, 1203 Queensferry Road in Cary.