Jerry Finnegan

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Biography

Jerry was born 10 Jan 1949 at Beloit, WI. He was the second son in what would become a family of eight children of Cyril and Barbara (Luce) Finnegan.

He began working at the age of 11 in a chain of gas stations (Finnegan Super Gas) that his father owned. He would wash windshields and check oil for their customers for $.25/hr (plus tips for the cute little kid who had to stand on top of a wooden crate to reach the middle of the windshield). As a result of working around cars, Jerry soon began to learn the repair of them, both at work and watching his father work on the stock cars that he raced.

This led to Jerry's life-long passion of racing in various forms. When he was a sophomore in high school, he began to race, and repair, motorcycles. It was during a hill-climb event in Warren, Ill. that he picked up the nickname Frog, which would be his moniker for the rest of his life.

After graduating from Beloit Memorial High School in 1967, he attended Whitewater State University for just under two semesters, then dropped out of school and enlisted in the Navy on a delayed-entry program that allowed him to race for the remainder of the summer without being drafted. He served four years on active duty, completing Basic Training at Great Lakes NTC, then 6 months on the USS Saratoga (CVA60), before transferring to his brother Denny's ship, the USS Grand Canyon (AD28). With the exception of a stint at EM"A" (Electricians Mate "A") School back at Great Lakes, he spent the remainder of his active duty time on the Grand Canyon, in Newport, R.I. when it wasn't sailing to the Mediterranean.

Upon discharge from the Navy he moved to the Cleveland (Ohio) area where he worked as an electric motor repairman in Mentor, OH., a skill he had mastered while in the Navy. He had learned to (snow) ski while in the Navy and quickly found a new ski club that was starting up, and he attended their first meeting, where he met Betty Christofferson. In a style true to his sense of humor, when asked how Jerry and Betty met he would answer, much to Betty's chagrin, that they met in a room over a bar.

They fell in love and were married on 27 Sep 1975 in Olmsted Falls, OH. They quickly began their family, having six children in the next 9 years, five of whom survived.

Jerry continued to work with electric motors and, in 1991, he moved his family to Boise, Idaho, where they raised their kids and enjoyed the great outdoors. He worked for Missman Electric for 14 years, then went to Gem State Electric where he became a part owner. In his free time he took up his love for backpacking and, in 2009, became the fifth person to ever complete the Idaho Centennial Trail (the first person ever to complete the ICT west, a 935-mile hike from Nevada to Canada through the mountains of Idaho.)

His beloved wife, Betty, passed away very suddenly on 16 Nov 2014, and Jerry found himself floundering. At the urging of his daughter, Lisa, he purchased a motorcycle (he hadn't owned a bike in 40 years) and took off on what he would declare to be his "P48" trip, a 17,000 mile tour of the perimeter of the lower 48 states. He would eventually self-publish a book (P48, A Journey 4UBETY) about his trip.

In 2017, he retired from Gem State Electric, selling his controlling interest in the company to one of his employees. He then ventured off on his bike again, this time to Alaska and the Canadian Rockies.

In September of that year he returned to Beloit for his 50-year high school reunion, where he reconnected with a friend he had first met as a cheerleader in 8th grade, Alicia Lernor. After returning from Beloit, they video chatted for hours on end and soon, they fell in love. They became engaged in December of 2017 and married, 31 Mar 2018.

Despite their recent marriage, Alicia encouraged him to proceed with another adventure that was already on his calendar, so five weeks after being married he flew to Spain and hiked the 485-mile Camino de Santiago.

In October of 2018, the newlyweds took their delayed honeymoon and traveled to South Africa, where they enjoyed twice-daily photo safaris at the Tau Game Lodge in the Madikwe Game Preserve. On the way back they detoured through London, then caught a flight to Dublin for three days in his ancestral homeland.

In February, 2019, they joined his brother, Tim, in Daytona Beach, FL. where Alicia got her first taste of NASCAR racing. She fell instantly in love with the whole thing and in the next couple of years they traveled to several races around the country, including NASCAR races in Dallas and Phoenix, and a return to Daytona in 2022, followed by attending the Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500 that same year.

Sources

• The Luce Family Tree, Descendants of William Henry Luce and Diantha Colwell. Written by Mrs. Warren (Ruth) Giles. Printed in 1972. D. Brandt has a copy.
• Bates-Dyson-Hatch Families by Larry Krug - 1983, photocopied pages from the book, p. 148. D. Brandt has a copy.
• Jerry Finnegan personal recollections.