Raymond Berkel

Raymond Lewis Berkel was born in 1933, the oldest of five children, in Boltage Township, Illinois. As a high school student, he worked in a local movie theater and there met his sweetheart who he married in 1953 and who would remain by his side for the next 62 years. At the age of 20, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was soon deployed to Korea, where he served proudly until 1957. Upon his return, Mr. Berkel became a Senior Electronics Technician for the satellite communications giant RCA (later GE) at a satellite tracking station in North Carolina, then at a missile range in White Sands, NM and was also closely involved with numerous NASA initiatives throughout the space race of the 1960’s. In 1976, he was relocated with his family to Cleveland, Texas to open the Rayburn Earth Station and has been a venerable member of the community ever since. He was an avid sportsman, fisherman, and golfer and a longtime member of the American Legion, the Optimist Club and the First Methodist Church of Cleveland. He will be remembered by his family and friends as a benevolent soul with a wry sense of humor. He was a gentle and deeply beloved father to Theresa Berkel, grandfather to Naomi Hughes and great-grandfather to Layne and Scarlet Simmons-Hughes. Mr. Berkel passed peacefully away in the home he shared with his surviving wife, Loberta Marie Berkel, on Friday morning, at the age of 82.