Ernest Lee Miller

Ernest Lee Miller was born in Temple, Texas on October 13,1946 and passed away on July 21, 2026. He grew up in Temple, Texas. He had fond memories of his childhood – riding bikes all over town (generally accompanied by his friend and neighbor Ben Will), playing hide and seek after dark, playing baseball, going fishing and camping with family including uncle Martin Argabright and aunt Catherine Argabright. As he grew older and went to high school, he formed many friendships (some from way back in first grade). Those friendships still exist as he has attended every class of 1965 reunion. He was generally considered the “smart one” and graduated sixth in his class. After high school, he spent a few months in Austin, Texas before joining the U.S. Navy in May of 1966. He attended boot camp in San Diego, California where testing revealed his best job in the Navy would be a Seabee Construction Electrician. So off he went to “A” school In Port Hueneme, California (but not before spending a couple of days fishing on the Brazos River with his friend Ben). After completing school, he got orders for Midway Island in the Pacific. While on leave before travelling to Midway, he had a blind date with Linda Corley. (For him, it was pretty much love at first sight). During his first few months on Midway, he corresponded frequently with Linda, letting her know of his feelings. He arranged a trip home during the summer, where he proposed. Luckily, she said yes. In December of 1967, they were married. After a brief honeymoon, he had to leave for training before going to Vietnam.

At the time, Vietnam was undergoing a fierce siege from Viet Cong and the North Vietnam army, started on TET 1968 and continued until subdued by the summer of 1968. Ernest was assigned to a Seabee camp in Dong Ha, where his unit maintained a marine base. For the first few months there were frequent mortar, rocket, and artillery attacks on the base. It was very scary at times, but looking back, he appreciated his time in Vietnam as a growing experience and serving his country. In early 1969, he returned home for a reunion with his “new” wife, before leaving again for Keflavik, Iceland. Linda was later able to join him there, and they enjoyed exploring a unique country.

During his time in the Navy, Ernest made some lifelong friends. The first was Mike Wagner, who was together from “A” school until discharge. John Turner was on Midway and kept everyone laughing for the entire year. Finally, Bill Cinert, who joined on Midway halfway through, and then joined in Vietnam halfway through. They kept in touch over the years and had a reunion with the four of them in 2018. He and Linda travelled to visit Mike and his wife Pat several times, and Mike and Pat visited him and Linda several times. A special friend, a Seabee brother.

After discharge from the Navy, he returned to Temple and attended Temple Junior college until transferring to the University of Texas, majoring in Electrical Engineering. During his time at UT, he participated in co-operative engineering and worked for IBM every other semester. He was a member of Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering honor society, and Phi Kappa Phi, an all-discipline honor society. He was also an officer in Eta Kappa Nu, the Electrical Engineering honor society, and was named an Engineering Fellow for four different semesters. During his last semester, he was appointed to the Dean’s council, which met with the Dean of

Engineering weekly. He graduated in December 1974 with Highest Honors and held the highest-grade point average in his class.

Ernest then began a 27-year career with IBM in Austin, Texas. He had various jobs: the logic design for a 2 chip communications adapter (9600 bps top speed), printer adapter for a word processing system, development of a protocol that allowed multiple workstations to utilize the same printer, development of a floppy disk adapter (8 inch floppy), coordinating the design of low power cmos chips for IBM’s first laptop, prototyping the addition of a hard file into the laptop, coordinating the printed circuit card development for a desktop computer, developing the printed circuit boards for server connected workstations, and serving as a multisite coordinator for printed circuit board design methodologies. During his career, he received two outstanding technical achievement awards, was issued five patents, and was published 24 times in the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin. He had achieved the level of Senior Engineer/Scientist several years before his retirement in 2001.

Ernest had always dreamed of flying someday. In 1978, he fulfilled that dream by taking lessons and becoming a private pilot. He took his family on two cross-country trips to Wisconsin and Missouri. Later he joined the Civil Air Patrol and flew many missions to help search for downed aircraft or find aircraft that were transmitting on their emergency locator radios. He gave up flying because of the expense after logging 320 hours of flight time.

In 1976, Ernest and Linda were blessed with a son Chris. In 1981 they relocated from Austin to Georgetown, where Chris became involved with sports. They soon found themselves becoming sports parents- soccer, baseball basketball and football. Having never played soccer, Ernest enjoyed the sport enough to become a referee. He started with youth soccer but moved up to competitive and then high school soccer. He retired as a referee after having the honor of officiating at the state regional tournament. Soccer was a family activity as Linda began volunteering with the local soccer organization and eventually wound up as a employee of the South Texas Youth Soccer Association for 22 years.

In 2005, Chris married Tabatha Blunt (Miller) and in 2009, they were blessed with a daughter, Audrey. Ernest and Linda enjoyed spending time with their granddaughter and watching her grow into a beautiful young lady. They treasured the many sleepovers with non-stop playtime shared with her.

Ernest and Linda also enjoyed traveling, going on 27 cruises to various places around the world – the Caribbean, Panama Canal, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Croatia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, and even Russia. The Rocky Mountaineer train trip through the Canadian Rockies was one of their favorite tours as well as their guided tour of Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Their driving tour of New England allowed them to view the spectacular color of the changing leaves in October and a chance to visit historic sites in the Boston area. They also visited Hawaii three other times, staying on Oahu, Maui, and Kauai. One of their early driving trips was to Washington, DC, where they toured the White House and visited several of the monuments, including the Vietnam wall. Years later, Ernest was privileged to go on an Honor Flight to

Washington. While the wall had been impressive on his earlier trip, he felt very emotional viewing the wall with many other Vietnam veterans.

At age 65, Ernest fulfilled another dream by becoming a certified open water scuba diver. Over the next few years, he was able to complete 19 dives while on some of the cruises he and Linda were on in places like Bonaire, Aruba, Cozumel, St. Maarten, Bahamas, Grand Cayman, and Hawaii. He dove among sharks in several places, but his favorite was off the coast of Maui, where the visibility in the water was over 100 feet.

In his later years Ernest was plagued by health issues. He developed pulmonary fibrosis which led to a right lung transplant in 2021 (during the pandemic). He also had chronic back pain in both the lumbar and thoracic regions, resulting in four separate lumbar surgeries. Then came the diagnosis of cancer in the parotid gland in the neck. After that surgery, he endured 33 radiation treatments with the hope that this would destroy any remaining cancer cells. Shortly after completing radiation, health concerns arose once again requiring a return to St Luke’s Hospital in Houston. The cancer had spread to his lungs. Through all of his medical trials, he remained positive and fought with all his might. He was thankful for the extra years that he was able to share with family and friends because of the generous donation from a grieving family five years previously.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that you consider a donation to one of the following groups:

The Ballard House, a non-profit organization that provides free temporary housing for patients and families traveling to Houston for life-threatening medical treatment. Information can be found on how to donate monetarily or from their Amazon Wish List. www.theballardhouse.org/donate

Honor Flight Austin, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to transporting veterans to Washington, D.C. for the “trip of a lifetime” to visit the memorials dedicated to honoring their service and sacrifices. Online: www.honorflightaustin.org or by mail to Honor Flight Austin, 5600 Burnet Road, Austin, Texas 78756

M D Anderson Cancer Center at www.mdanderson.org