Wiley was born in Texas to Mary Rachel Volkers and Wiley Ray Haggard. Rachel raised him in Fort Worth during the Great Depression. He was a poor boy who dreamed of learning to fly. At 16, with World War II gripping Europe, Wiley enlisted in the Army Air Corps and made that dream reality. The young captain flew B-17 bombers over Germany before returning to Texas at the age of 18 to marry the love of his life: Mary Leah White.

He attended Texas Christian University on the GI Bill, supplementing his meager student income by teaching flight aerobatics. Wiley went on to a career in the oil industry as a geophysicist — the work took him and Leah to communities all over the Western United States and Canada. Four children arrived in those early years. He and Leah thrived socially, hosting parties, running ski trips, and participating in Geophysical Society functions.

Wiley realized his love of flying once again in Alaska and Canada, where he owned airplanes and took to the Western skies with Leah for backcountry adventures. During this time, he came to believe in physical fitness as the key to vitality and a long life. He maintained a demanding fitness regimen throughout the rest of his life.

Wiley returned home to Texas in his fifties to help his elderly mother, finish his career, and then retire at 68. These may have been some of the happiest years of his life, as he and Leah luxuriated in their empty nest and relished being together. Retirement gave him time for fishing and writing — two lifelong passions. He and Leah, playful and energetic, were adored by their five grandchildren.

Leah passed away from Alzheimer's in 2008, breaking his heart. Wiley spent the years that followed writing, staying extraordinarily fit, keeping sharp with a flight simulator, reading, and connecting with his family.

Throughout his life, Wiley was forever taking up a new hobby or sport with aplomb. When technology began to play a major role in daily life, rather than being intimidated, he embraced it. Computers transformed geophysics late in Wiley's career; he learned the complex 3-D technology in his 60s. He tackled any chore that he thought he could do himself — overhauling his cars, finishing basements, plumbing, electrical — with an eye for perfection and a craftsman's touch.

Wiley was a sensitive, sentimental man with a deep love of family, and above all, of Leah. He was a patriot who strongly believed in American exceptionalism.

Wiley's four children will miss him terribly: Suzi Davies (Ted), Pat Bell (Frank, dec.), Bill Haggard (Diane) and Shirley Orr (Neil), as will his five grandchildren (Lynneth Whitten, Amy Mirabile, Bryan Orr, Stephanie Bell, and Leanna Orr), and four great grandchildren… with one more on the way.

Wiley Ray Haggard, Jr. passed on November 26th at the age of 94.