Jerry Randolph Tennant, 86, of Princeton passed peacefully to the House of the Lord on April 21, 2024 after several months of illness. Born March 29, 1938, in Kimball, West Virginia, he was the son of the late Carl L. Tennant and Kathleen N. Green.
Jerry was a 1957 graduate of Princeton Senior High School where he was an outstanding athlete, lettering in Football and Track and Field. He served in the United States Marine Corps, where he continued to be involved in athletics on the Marine Corps football team. While in the Marines, Jerry was recruited by the United States Olympic Bobsled team, where he would go on to compete and represent the United States in France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. Jerry won two silver medals in the 1961 World Championship Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York.
Jerry was employed by Norfolk and Southern Corporation, Pocahontas Land Division, where he spent 30-years as a land surveyor. He was a member of the First Christian Church in Princeton, and a 2003 inductee into the Princeton Senior High School Sports Hall of Fame.
Jerry was a humble and quiet man who always put others before himself. He loved mowing, landscaping, and growing tomatoes. He was known throughout the Princeton neighborhoods as a fix-it man, and at one time, was mowing as many as 12 yards after retirement. Jerry was also a true family man, and was married to the love of his life, Sheila Fielder Tennant for 64 years. Anyone that knew them would tell you they were inseparable.
Jerry was severely ill over the last several months, but he really died of a broken heart after Sheila passed in February. In addition to his parents, Jerry was preceded in death by his wife, Sheila Fielder Tennant, brother, Donald Ray Tennant, and daughter, Lesa Kay Tennant. He is survived by his son, Kenneth S. Tennant (Heather Young-Tennant) of Morgantown; grandsons, Colin J. Tennant, and Evan M. Young; the McClaugherty family, Michael, Kristy, Bryana (Roberts), Erika, and Mason, all of Princeton, and Wayne Martin of Peoria, AZ.
Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Friday, April 26, 2024, at Seaver Funeral Home in Princeton with Reverend Steve Janning officiating. Burial with military honors will follow at Oakwood Park Cemetery in Princeton. Visitation will be from 9:30 a.m. until the service hour Friday at the funeral home. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Jerry’s memory to First Christian Church, 805 Straley Ave., Princeton, WV 24740.