On Wednesday, October 28, 1998, Charles M. Dibrell, W5BLW passed away in the local hospital here in Ardmore. Charles was a member of our little HAM radio group that meets every other Tuesday. Charles was born May 9, 1912 at Elk City, Oklahoma to Charles C. and Jennie Brooks Dibrell.
Charles moved to Ardmore in 1920 and graduated from Ardmore High School in 1930. On August 19, 1988 he married Shirley Rawlins Hatfield in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Charles worked for Western Electric, assigned to the U.S. Navy in the shipboard division in radar. He then worked for Bell Laboratories in New York City developing two-way radios for railroad communications. He returned to Ardmore following the war and established Dibrell's Two Way Radio Communication Service.
Charles had been a licensed HAM radio operator since 1929.
I remember meeting Charles Dibrell for the first time in 1970 when I went to work for the Ambulance Service here. We'd take our ambulances over to him when they had two way radio problems. His little shop was located behind his house at 221 9th NW, just west from the "B" Street Tennis Courts. He used to talk to me about when he first went into the radio repair business, and how there were hardly any technicians in this area. He took care of all the police, fire, sheriff, and ambulance 2-way radios, plus all the businesses for 50 to 75 miles radius of Ardmore. He took a liking to our ambulance service and always treated us fairly, working us in immediately when our radio was down. He knew that two-way in that 1967 Chevrolet station wagon ambulance could mean the difference of life and death to someone.
I guess the thing that I remember most about Charles, was his brilliant mind for electronics. Even right up to his last few days, his mind was keen, and he could tell you exactly how to solve some electronic wiring problem or what transistor was needed to make a component work properly, if it was electronic, Charles knew what made it tick.
Charles would talk to me about that old Seth Thomas Clock in the dome of the courthouse too. How he'd been up there years ago, working on an antenna problem, and suddenly the bell went off and scared the dickens out of him. Not to mention fighting the pigeons off all the time while he was up in the dome working.
But something he told me about a year ago still sticks in my mind, and makes me proud to be working for the Carter County Courthouse. Charles told me that many many years ago, when times were not so good, he'd do work for some surrounding county governments, and wonder if they were ever going to pay him. They didn't a couple times. But he said Carter County never failed once in all those years of servicing their two-way radios, to pay him for his services.
Charles is survived by his wife Shirley, and a niece Ann Dibrell Clowdus and her husband Don, and their children along with some nephews and cousins.
Bearers were Ben Ward, Ed Whitechurch, Howard Robinson, Don Drake and Jim Shelton and Bill Shelton. Honorary bearers were members of the Ardmore Amateur Radio Club. Services were held at St. Philips Episcopal Church here in Ardmore where he was a member. Griffin-Kennedy-Watts Funeral Home directed services and burial was at Rose Hill Cemetery.
Here's a pic of Charles when he installed the AM radio for the first radio station in Ardmore, KVSO way back in 1936.
Here's a more recent pic that was taken about a year ago when Charles was at one of our HAM meetings over at Howard Robinson's house.
And here's the photo of Charles that was in the obituary column of the Daily Ardmoreite.
This is the Obit page in The Daily Ardmoreite of the death announcment
Charles Dibrell will be missed by many of us that knew the kind man that he was.
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