Mel Wibbels passed away
peacefully January 1st, 2022. Mel was born in Grand Island, Nebraska, on August
4, 1936. He was the youngest of five children born to Algie and Lollie Anderson
Wibbels. Mel rode a horse to a one-room country school and graduated from
Wolbach High School in 1953. He graduated from the University of Nebraska in
1957 with an agriculture B.S. degree. He began his career in the meat packing
industry in 1958 in Waterloo, Iowa. He met and married Beverly Silk of
Griswold, Iowa in 1957. To this union were born four children: Anne Marie, Jay
David, Mark John, and Kathryn Louise. The family returned to Nebraska in 1960,
then moved to Great Falls, Montana, in 1967. In 1974 they moved to the Treasure
Valley, locating in Fruitland, Meridian, then Boise. Mel retired from the USDA
Meat Grading Service in 1993, then started a handy-man business, which he had
for nearly 20 years. His family remembers him as a man who could fix anything
and often had a story to go with it. One of Mel’s passions was supporting the
robotics team son Mark mentored. He had happy memories of watching “Team
Tators” compete from Arizona to Atlanta and many locations between.
Mel is preceded in death by his
son Jay, parents Algie and Lollie, siblings and their spouses: Edsel and Cathy
Wibbels, Leonard and Betty Wibbels, Ray and Veda Wibbels, and Florence and
Stuart Teter. He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Beverly; children Anne
(Keith) Simila, Mark (Terry) Wibbels, and Kathryn (Vern) Wells; six
grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren, and numerous nieces, nephews, and
friends.
A memorial service will be held on Friday, January 7, 2022, at 1 p.m., at Discovery Church Boise. Flowers may be delivered after 9 a.m. on Friday to Discovery Church.
The memorial service will be available as a livestream and a recording at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wljP0b-JjUM