John Harvey Rust

John Harvey Rust, age 88 of Edmond, passed away after a long battle from the results of multiple strokes and vascular dementia on March 26, 2023.  

John was born at home on a farm near Rocky, Oklahoma on May 26, 1934, to William and Gertie Rust. During John’s early life he lived on the farm with his parents, older brother George, and older sister Mae, and they raised chickens, turkeys, guineas, cattle, horses, and mules. John also recalled not having electricity and his family worked to put up a wind charger so they could power one 6-volt electric light bulb and a radio. John and his older brother George had many stories of living in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl and the blowing dust always hitting the wind charger over and over making loud buzzing noises. John first attended Little Hope School (really that was the name of the school, he would say and laugh about), where he would walk two miles with George and Mae (and honestly, they did walk to school- wind, dust, rain, snow…). In 1944, Johns mother tragically passed away.  

John later went to Rocky High School where he participated and won multiple county fair ribbons for his exhibits, and the third high individual in the state dairy judging contest. At age 17 he left his small farm and headed to Oklahoma City to work building farm fences for $20 a week with room and board included. He then started working at Western Electric in the installation division. He would travel to towns to work on the telephone switchboards the operators used. John later started installing the more advanced crossbar switches. 

In 1954, John was drafted into the military and joined the Air Force. During his military time, he was sent to Korea and Japan. In 1957, he was nominated for Airman of the Month for the 41st Air Division. He later went to Fordland, Missouri in the 797th Air Division. In 1958, he was honorably discharged and went to Central State College (now UCO) in Edmond, Oklahoma on his GI bill. At this time, he started dabbling in various real estate investments. 

In 1963, he married Patricia (Pat) Simpson and had three children: John (Johnny) Rust, Jr., Steven (Steve) Rust, and Angela (Angie) Rust. The family moved to Edmond Oklahoma in 1973.  

During the 70’s John and Pat bought land, and flipped multiple homes for resale, and acquired some mineral rights to oil. In 1978, they purchased Charlemagne apartments in Yukon Oklahoma (sold in 2001). In 1979, John and Pat worked to build their own home on a new lot of land (in Deer Creek area of Edmond) where they currently lived.  

He not only worked in the real estate market. Many of us know him as a self-educated physics, space, and science guy. He would spend hours reading books on space and physics and was vastly interested in this field. So interested, the people close to him knew he was on an exceedingly different level of thinking. He worked hard at inventing and documenting (with a garage that looked like Doc’s on the movie Back to the Future). He designed intricate blueprints depicting how a space craft could move through space (i.e., how flying saucers work). This blueprint was so detailed that the government classified his documents for 20 years. He was also, deemed the name “flying saucer man”. He has a patent for Inertial mass suspension. Hopefully, the technology he had drawn up will someday come to fruition. Some of his documents and patents are viewable on Google. US20120097798A1 - Inertial mass suspension - Google Patents 

In his later years, he loved to sit by his pool with a beer listening to old country music (mostly Tom T. Hall) and mowing the lawn on his riding lawnmower all spring and summer (even if the lawn needed it or not). 

He is survived by his wife Pat and their three children — sons Johnny Rust of Edmond, and Steve Rust of Petaluma California, and a daughter Angie French and her husband Brandon of Edmond.  Grandchildren – Kayla Lewis and her husband Andrew, and Kortney French, Kassidy French. Great grandchildren – Mason, and Wyatt Lewis. Along with many brother in-laws, sister in-laws, nieces, nephews, and friends. 

John would often strangely say “Don’t ever have a funeral for me please, those are just too sad. Just go out with friends and have a beer or something, don't worry about me!”  In remembrance of John, we plan to have a small family get together, then around his birthday in May, we would like to have a get together with friends and family -- at his favorite place by the pool in his backyard. We are hoping to have this event on/around May 27, 2023.

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