Gerald Leroy “Jerry” Adcock, 91, died in Ames, Iowa on May 26, 2024. He was born March 10, 1933, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Harold E. and Amelia (Lambelet) Adcock and had an older sister, Virginia. It was the heart of the Great Depression; President Roosevelt closed the nation’s banks the week of his birth.

Jerry’s father was a tenant farmer, and Jerry saw firsthand the transition in farming from horses to tractors. Jerry grew up on farms in northeastern Nebraska near Winnebago and Bancroft, where his father progressed from renting to owning his own farm. Jerry attended rural county schools for several years, graduating from Bancroft High School in 1950 as valedictorian of his class. He was the 22nd of 250 students awarded a Regent’s Tuition Scholarship to the University of Nebraska in statewide competition. He graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1954 with a B. Sc., majoring in accounting. He also earned an Army R.O.T.C. commission. The Korean War was in progress and he reported immediately for active duty. He spent 2 years at Fort Carson, Colorado, as a lieutenant with the 8th Division Military Police Company. He then returned to the UNL College of Law and received a Juris Doctor degree in 1959.

Jerry’s first job was as an estate tax attorney with the Internal Revenue Service in the Omaha district office. It was the start of 37 years of service with the IRS, the last 24 years as supervisor of the Estate and Gift Tax Group for Nebraska and South Dakota. In 1969 Jerry was selected for a Ford Foundation award for a year’s graduate study in Public Administration at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, Virginia.

Jerry retired in 1996. He spent the next 23 years as board member and financial manager for the Edwards Foundation, a scholarship- granting organization founded by four sisters from Red Oak, Iowa. Jerry also contributed many articles on family and local history to the Brock Bugle and the Nemaha County Herald. In 2015, Jerry received on behalf of his family a Pioneer Farm Award, given to a farm family that has consecutively held ownership of land in the same family for 100 years. The family farm near Brock, Nebraska, had been owned by Jerry’s mother’s family before coming to Jerry’s parents.

On June 8, 1963, Jerry married Carolyn Dorothy Eyres of Le Mars, Iowa. They celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in June 2023. Jerry is survived by his wife, Carolyn; their two children, Diane Ruth (Richard) Lammert of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Harold Lee (Sunny) Adcock of Ames, Iowa; and two grand children, Miles Lammert and Anya Adcock.

No services will be held. Interment will be at Lafayette Cemetery, Brock, Nebraska.