Lewis Elton Yearout

Lewis Elton Yearout, 87, of 308 Riverview Dr. E., a retired U.S. Army Air Force Major, died Sunday at his home.
At his request, no services are planned. Cremation has taken place under the direction of Chapel of Chimes Funeral Home.
Survivors include his wife, Thelma Jayne "Teddy" (Harlow) Yearout; a daughter, Gaila Gertrude (Virgil) Althoff of Waubay, S.D.; a son, Leyton Zane Yearout of Great Falls; a brother, Dean Edwin Yearout of Great Falls; five grandchildren, Cody Zane Yearout and Jessica Yearout of Great Falls, Bruce (Jean) Althoff of Great Falls, Russell and Perry Althoff of South Dakota; seven great-grandchildren, Kelia Ann, William, Kevin, Danny, Tony Lewis, Amanda, and Elizabeth Althoff, all of Waubay.
He was preceded in death by brothers Joseph Orin Yearout Jr. and Arthur Yearout.
Lewis was born Jan. 19, 1920, to Joseph Orin and Alice Mae Yearout on a farm at Overbrook, Kan. At age 5, the family moved to Lyndon, Kan., where he attended grade school and completed high school in 1937. Lewis also attended the University of Alaska (zoology), Standard Business Training Institute-Buffalo, N.Y., and Officers Candidate School in Miami Beach, Fla.
He was employed by the Lyndon Broom Company from 1937 to 1938. In 1939, he worked as a chainman in the engineering department of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway at Las Vegas, N.M. Via completion of correspondence courses in traffic management, the next two years were spent as an employee of Eastern Massachusetts Railway out of Boston. He enlisted in the Army on Aug. 16, 1942 at Fort Devans, Mass., as a private.
Lewis married his Kansas high school sweetheart, Thelma Jayne Harlow in January 1939. They were married for more than 68 years. Their daughter, Gaila Gertrude Yearout was born June 12, 1940. A son, Leyne was born at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska and died in infancy in 1949. Leyton Zane was born Feb. 16, 1952, at Fort Belvoir, Va.
After enlistment as a private at Fort Devans, basic training was at Miami Beach, Fla., where the Air Force took over all the hotels. He en-tered officers candidate school, graduating Mar. 3, 1943, as a 2nd lieutenant in the Army Air Force. School classmates from the Hollywood, Calif., area were Bruce Cabot, Robert Preston and Clark Gable. As a "supply officer," his U.S. assignments were Bowman Field in Louisville, Ky.; Ardmore, Okla.; Will Rogers Field in Oklahoma City; Strother Field in Arkansas City, Kan.; Great Salt Plains Bombing and Gunnery Range in Jet, Okla.; Grand Island, Neb.; Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, N.M.; Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, Texas; Fort Lawton in Seattle; then to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska with the 28th Heavy Bomb Group, the first B-29 Group to be stationed in the Territory of Alaska.
Wherever he was stationed, his family followed. Normally with each assignment, Thelma was employed as a stenographer under Civil Service. As a captain, he decided to leave the service and go to college under the G.I. Bill. He resigned and was discharged at Buckley Field in Denver. His intended college was Oklahoma A&M. On arrival, the college was overflowing with G.I.'s with the same intent, plus there was no housing. He, with family, drove to Junction City, Kan., and re-enlisted at Marshall Air Force Field located in the old Cavalry Post of Fort Riley, Kan., as a permanent rank of master Sergeant. Three months later, due to a shortage of supply officers in the Army Air Force, he was recalled to active duty in the rank of 1st lieutenant and returned to duty at Elmendorf A.F.B. in Anchorage.
Alaska remained his duty base, along with a short tour to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., where he served under Gen. Omar Bradley, the first general to be appointed by President Truman as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He was assigned in February 1957 to Malmstrom A.F.B. as the 801st Radar Squad as supply officer, a member of the Air Defense Com-mand. He retired as a major in March 1963.
From his retirement, he became a real estate agent with Manning and O'Reilly Realty, where he remained until retirement a second time in 1985.
During those same years, he continued to collect the early firearms of Montana. As a life member of the National Rifle Association, he founded in 1961 the Montana Arms Collectors Association, the first such arms collectors association to be founded in Montana.
In 1976, with the founding of the Winchester Arms Collectors Association, he organized and established the Winchester Gun Show in Cody, Wyo., which is still a yearly affair.
In 1972, as a guest, he attended the Montana State Constitutional Convention in Helena. Here he worked with the Bill of Rights Commit-tee. This was a Democratic venture under the leadership of two prominent attorneys, both Democrats, Leo Graybill of Great Falls and Wade Dahood of Anaconda. Both insisted that firearms were no longer desirable or necessary in Montana's future. By canvassing all of the dele-gates over a 10-day period and finally speaking to the entire delegation, his efforts were successful. The individual right to keep and bear arms, as it appeared in the original 1889 Constitution, was included in the new 1972 State Constitution.
From 1984 to his passing, he supported and assisted his son, Leyton, in maintaining Montana Outfitters, an antique gun shop and horse tack operation, coupled with a pistol and rifle shooting range, located five miles outside Great Falls, north on the Bootlegger Trail.
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