Wilford "Bud" Jay Westre

Funeral services for Wilford Westre will be held at 11:00 a.m., Friday, October 16, 2020 at Trinity Lutheran Church with Pastor Jared Tucher officiating; interment to follow at Mt. Pisgah Cemetery. Wilford Westre age 88, of Aberdeen, SD passed away of natural causes Monday October 5, 2020 at Carolyn and Mike Erickson's where he has resided the last 2 years. Wilford (Bud) was the youngest of 3 children of Cora Amelia (Nelson) and Jay Herman Westre.  He was preceded in death by his wife Marlene in 2019 and his older sisters – Adeline (Lowell) Hamilton and Myrtle (Jack) Garhart.  Bud graduated from Chamberlain High School then was drafted into the Army during the occupation of Germany.  Upon completion of his required military hitch, Bud entered the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, SD to pursue a mechanical engineering degree. While attending Mines, Bud worked for a steel company building hangars for Ellsworth Air Force base in addition to attending school fulltime. Rapid City, SD held many high points for Bud as this is where he met and married the love of his life, Marlene (Tesch) on August 11, 1957 and started a career in engineering with Black Hills Power and Light – eventually being promoted to Vice President of Engineering and, simultaneously, General Manager of the wholely owned subsidiary, Wyodak Resources Development Corp.  During his tenure as VP of Engineering, he was credited by a University of Wyoming historian with being a Wyomingite that strongly moved Wyoming's energy sector forward with the first United States implementation of dry cooling of a power plant reducing the need for large quantities of cooling water by a factor of 100.  This allowed power plants to be built near the large coal reserves in eastern Wyoming – maximizing energy production without using up every drop of water available in this part of the country.  After many years with BHP&L, Bud went to work for the Alberta Wheat Pool (Co-op) in Calgary, Alberta resulting in his, Marlene, and Carolyn's move to Calgary, Alberta and living in the big city for the first time.  Marlene re-entered the nursing profession in critical care after their move to Calgary. The Wheat Pool selling the fertilizer business resulted in a move by Bud to Energy Industries where he designed compressor packages – including quite a number that went north on the frozen rivers to produce gas and other forms of hydrocarbon's in northern Canada.  When an opportunity presented itself to get back into steam power generation at the Foothills Hospital in northwest Calgary, Bud stepped back into the power generation business with 32 MW of steam boilers that provided electricity and heat for the 1500 bed teaching hospital in Calgary.  His responsibilities included buildings / grounds / security and all crafts necessary to keep the hospital operational.  He welcomed retirement when the opportunity presented itself with Marlene following his lead into retirement about 2 years later.  During the hiatus between Bud's retirement and Marlene's, they worked seriously at building their retirement dream home east of Rozet on Sunny Slope Road to which they moved after emigrating back to the US from Canada in 2001.