Jon Eric Scharbrough

Jon Eric Scharbrough, 68, of Fort Myers, Forida, and formerly of Brownstown, passed away in Florida on June 14, 2025, after a brief illness. He was born to Dr. William and Wilma Scharbrough on August 1, 1956, in Seymour. He is survived by one brother, William D. (Marlene) Scharbrough, II; one sister, Ann Haddix; one nephew, Stephen (Emily) Scharbrough; four nieces: Katie (Jeremy) Beehn, Sarah Scharbrough (Jeff) McLaughlin, Suzanne (Jonathan) Cogswell, and Emily (Marty) Robinson; and several nieces, nephews, and cousins. He was preceded in death by his parents and one brother-in-law, Bruce Haddix.
Jon graduated from Brownstown Central High School in 1974 and Southwest Florida State University. He was an EMT and worked for ambulance companies in central Indiana and Fort Myers, Florida. He then became a cardiovascular technologist and worked for Lee Health and Florida Heart Associates in Fort Myers. Although he had a home in Fort Myers, for years he was a "traveler" who moved around the country to work in areas of temporary need. He worked in hospitals in many states and encountered, maybe even created, adventure everywhere he went. He moved from place to place in a big RV and explored many locales on his motorcycle. He rode his 'cycle across the 7-mile bridge to Key West, along the Pacific Coast Highway in California, and across the Golden Gate Bridge. He had pictures with his 'cycle at both the easternmost and westernmost points of US Highway 50. While living and working in Washington, DC, he rode from the US Pentagon to the National Mall as part of the Memorial Day "Rolling Thunder" rally to honor US veterans. He inherited his dad's calm and reassuring demeanor with patients and had the "gift of gab," making good friends all over the country.
Jon's mischief as a red-haired youngster was the stuff of legend.
In middle school, he was about to get the paddle, then interrupted the teacher, Alva Sibbitt, to remind him that his dad was on the school board. Mr. Sibbitt laughed so Jon was spared the rod.
Once Bill and Ann oversaw Jon while their parents were out of town for the afternoon. Of course, they were not paying much attention until they got a call with the report that Jon, then about 12 or 13, had just been spotted pulling into the local Dairy Queen driving his dad's car!
He struck up a conversation at a chance encounter at a Seymour car wash with then-governor, Ed Whitcomb. Their friendship continued, which eventually led to Jon receiving a personal invitation to the Indiana governor's next inauguration ceremony.
He loved fast cars and drove his Nova around the track at the Brownstown Speedway and took Wilma's Cadillac once to the dirt track after hours to see how fast it would go.
Perhaps Jon was most widely known for the "dummies in the river" escapade. Jon and some of his pre-teen neighborhood cronies had made dummy likenesses of themselves, stuffed with newspapers and leaves with paper sack heads. They were hanging in the Scharbrough's garage and Jon's mother asked him to get rid of them in preparation for an upcoming holiday picnic, which the boys did, deciding for fun to drag them via bikes to the crime scene and throw them off the Honeytown Bridge. An elderly woman saw the suspicious activity and called the police, who responded with full-out search and rescue/recover activity downriver at the US 50 bridge. Somehow the cops wound up in the Scharbrough's driveway, letting the boys go with a gentle talking to after their contrite explanation that it truly had been only in fun to see whose dummy would float! News was slow that weekend and it hit the newspapers and later was picked up by the AP where an abbreviated version was distributed all over the country.
Jon's dad bought him a set of walkie-talkies when he was a teenager, and this sparked a lifelong interest in electronic communication. Jon installed a CB radio in older brother Bill's '69 Chevelle Malibu, mounted a speaker under the hood, and it became the famous "talking car." That interest in radio led to jobs, first in a retail electronics shop, then selling land mobile radios. From there, he gravitated into broadcast radio, working at several smalltown radio stations. With the move to more and more automation in broadcast radio, he moved into public safety dispatching. He once joked that there were more people listening to him (on scanners) as a dispatcher, than had listened to him on some of the small-town radio stations in which he worked! Dispatching eventually led him into EMS, then to EMS administration, and finally to a rewarding forty-plus year career in health care.
Jon was a member of Fort Myers Amateur Radio Club for nearly 20 years and was a knowledgeable and beloved mentor and license examiner for new ham operators. Jon facilitated the Amateur Radio-International Space Station (ISS) program in which local middle school students made contact via ham radio with the ISS.
Jon was also an active member of the Lee County ARES/ALERT providing ham radio support during weather emergencies and coordinated radio communications during and following several hurricane disasters in southwest Florida. He was chairman of many of their group's special events and had earned awards for his work and expertise.
In honor of Jon's master ham radio skills and his devotion to their group, the Fort Myers Amateur Radio Club held a special and moving "final call" service in which his call number AA4JS was acknowledged as having gone silent.
He had a beautiful deep bass voice and loved music.
He was a man of strong Christian faith, which was the foundation for his courage and strength during his final illness. He was an active member of St. John the Apostle Metropolitan Community Church in Fort Myers.
Funeral services for Jon Eric Scharbrough will be conducted at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 2025, at Spurgeon Funeral Home, Inc., Brownstown. Friends may call from 10:00 a.m. until the time of the service at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 2025, at Spurgeon Funeral Home, Inc.
Interment will follow at Fairview Cemetery, Brownstown.
Memorials may be given to Community MD Anderson Cancer Center-North, Indianapolis, or Ft. Myers Amateur Radio Club through Spurgeon Funeral Home, Inc.
Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to the caring staff of Spurgeon Funeral Home, Inc.
Online memorials and condolences may be given at www.spurgeonfh.com