From an article in THE MESSENGER by Maurice Simmons

July/August 1998

    “Earl Lee---a death that I believe should not have happened.  It was on a Friday morning.  A group of us were coming home for a weekend (apparently from Kelly Field in San Antonio).  We drove up to Earl’s barracks about 1 p.m., to see if he was ready to go. “No,” he said, “my airplane is on a cross-country flight and will not be back until later in the afternoon.”  The driver of the car said he had to leave and could not wait.  Sometime later, when Earl’s plane returned and he had serviced it for the next flight, it was getting late.  I do not remember if he owned or borrowed the motorcycle, but he started to De Leon.  Darkness caught him not far out of San Antonio.  He began to have electrical problems, and his lights kept going on and off.  As he topped a hill not far from Goldthwaite, his motorcycle ran under a truck-trailer loaded with pipe.  I have wished many times that his plane had been there or that he had gone cross-country with it.”

A member of the De Leon Class of 1940, buried at Oakland Cemetery.