Edward Lee Harder

Thursday evening, February 5th, 2026, Edward Lee Harder, 82, went to be with his Lord and Savior. Ed was born on September 29th, 1943, to Opal Irene (Ervin) and Tona Martin Harder in Yale, Oklahoma. He graduated from Yale High School with the class of 1961. He then attended Oklahoma State University (Go Pokes!) where he studied Aeronautic Technology. While at OSU he met Andrea F. Morris. Their first date was on St. Valentine's Day in 1962 when he took her out riding on an old Indian motorcycle. They were married on December 19th that same year. They celebrated 63 years together on their last anniversary.

In 1963, they moved to Del City where Ed worked at Phillips Petroleum. In 1969, he started work at Christensen Diamond Products Company, the world's largest producer of industrial diamond products, who sent him to Paris and their plant in Germany to coordinate and train. At Christensen, he worked with an amazing group of characters who embraced him and his family and are still fondly remembered. In 1985, Little Giant Pump Company hired Ed and later promoted him to Maintenance Manager sending him to work in Mexico for a time to help get the plant there off the ground. Many years and so many work friends later, he retired from Little Giant in 2012.

Ed attended Del City First Church of the Nazarene where he was on the church board and served God and his church with his time and his talent of being able to fix almost anything, running sound during services, and later leading them through a large addition to the church. For months, he checked in daily after work, helping to make sure that the build was a success. Beginning in 1991, First Southern Baptist Church became Ed and Andrea's church home, where Ed continued to serve the Lord by working on a team running the sound and lights during services and programs. Upon his retirement, he volunteered at the church tirelessly, working with a team of retired gentlemen to paint their Sunday School rooms. He headed many other construction projects, always helping his church family in any way he could.

Ed's hobbies were cars, planes, and guns, and he enjoyed all of them from his youth on. In his 20s, he and his friends had a drag racing car, The Magnificent Seven. In his 40s, he and his friend raced their car at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds. He said that it was sometimes more of a demolition derby than a race, but it was great fun for everyone. Ed built and flew remote control airplanes for decades, and his children and grandchildren were all fond of going with him to the flying field. They also spent time with him at the IHMSA gun range where Ed was an internationally ranked marksman, and he and his brother, Dan, enjoyed traveling and competing at shoots together. Ed also enjoyed racing and spending time with friends at the slot car track. The grandchildren and great grandchildren sometimes raced, too, using cars that PaPa, as he was known by then, had built them.

Ed's family were the lights of his life, and spending time with them joking, cooking, eating, or just being together brought him great joy, but his favorite thing may have been spoiling his grandkids and great-grandkids rotten. He was kind, smart, full of curiosity, and really, really funny, and he was loved in every circle in which he moved. He could fix just about anything, and his family, his friends, his church, and even strangers, were the beneficiaries of those talents. He will be so terribly missed.

Ed is survived by his wife of 63 years, Andrea, his son, Douglas Lee, and his daughter, Tona Lea; his granddaughter, Rachel Elise Chudoba, her husband, Chad, and their three children: Isaac, Alexandra, and Brenya; his grandson, Curtis, and his wife, Lori; his grandson, Bryan; his granddaughter, Indigo, and her fiancé, Robert Wilkerson; his grandson, Adam; his grandson, Westyn; his granddaughter, Kynleigh; his dear brother, Dan, and his wonderful wife, Linda; many extended family members, and innumerable friends.

He is preceded in death by his mother, Opal, his father, Tona, his older brother, Phillip, and his daughter-in-law, Marcia.

Nothing Loved Is Ever Lost