Joseph Edward "Joe" Wagner

Joseph Edward “Joe” Wagner (1941-2021)

Joseph Edward “Joe” Wagner, Jr., 79, of Hurst, Texas, passed away on Tuesday, January 12, 2021, in Richland Hills under hospice care after suffering from a central nervous system lymphoma. He was born to the late Joseph Edward Wagner, Sr. and Margit Carlson “Marge” Wagner on June 17, 1941, in Chicago, Illinois.

Mr. Wagner and his family moved to Roselle, Illinois, when he was 10.  He attended Catholic school through the 8th grade and graduated from Lake Park High School in Roselle in 1959. After attending Northwestern University his freshman year, Joe then worked as a mail carrier driving a rural route. He joined the Army and trained at the Army Language School in Monterey, California, learning Russian. He was later stationed in Germany near the Russian border, where he monitored radio transmissions.  After being honorably discharged, Joe went to work for TWA Airlines in reservations.  He received computer training and worked for Stacy Data Processing in Chicago doing small business programming. 

He studied at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, to get his AA in 1971 and studied at the University of Illinois at Chicago, earning his BS in computer engineering in 1976. Mr. Wagner worked for GTE Directories Corp. beginning in 1976 and earned a Master’s degree in Management from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in 1982.  GTE Directories relocated him to the DFW Airport location in 1984 and he retired from GTE in 1999.  Mr. Wagner later worked for TRS-RenTelco (McGrath RentCorp, Inc.) maintaining its data base as an application developer; he did consulting work for TRS-Ren-Telco until 2019.  He then completely retired by 2020 and helped do bookkeeping and computer work for Prime the Pump Consulting, his wife’s small business.

Mr. Wagner had an avid love for cars starting with driving his Dad’s 1957 Ford.  He loved his sports car in the Army, a Triumph TR2. He owned a 1969 Camaro and then a dark green 1970 Corvette. This led to meeting the girl of his dreams, his wife, Paulette. As she tells it, she had fallen in love with both the man and the car.  Mr. Wagner had 1973 and 1977 VW Campmobiles.  When he first retired, he bought a dark green 2000 Corvette, the first of a series of several Corvettes in various colors including the 2014 dark green Corvette which he currently owns. 

Mr. Wagner was “Big Joe” on www.corvetteforum.com. He was a former member of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) – Chicago Region, serving as its newsletter editor. He also volunteered as a Corner Worker, Corner Captain, and Course Marshal for Sports Car Club of America and other automobile races, especially at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Upon arriving in Texas he joined the Sports Car Club of America – Texas Region and served as its newsletter editor.  Mr. Wagner joined the Corvette Club of Texas in 2000 and was an active member, volunteering as the club’s newsletter editor, webmaster, and board member.  He was also a member of the Lone Star Corvette Club.

The Optimist Club of the Mid-Cities benefited from Mr. Wagner’s participation with the high school soccer tournaments held at Pennington Field in Bedford, Texas, in the ’90s. He and his family helped decorate the Optimist Club International Rose Bowl Parade float in Pasadena, California, in 1996.

Above all else, Joe was at home with his computer. He loved jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, computer games and board games. He also enjoyed reading, especially science fiction novels. Mr. Wagner was a member of MENSA (the high IQ society) – Mensa 76 locally, once serving as its newsletter editor. He actively participated in the group’s brunch and board games groups. Mr. Wagner was an attendee at local sports events including the Texas Rangers and the now disbanded Fort Worth Cats.

Mr. Wagner was a voracious movie collector and avid community theatre-goer, where much of his time and collection revolved around musicals, most fondly his love of Gilbert and Sullivan. He paired his love of movies with his knack for data processing and statistics, creating an amazingly detailed spreadsheet that listed every movie he’d ever watched. Joe was never one to take on a task without an intricate and dedicated eye for detail.

He is survived by his loving wife of 48 years, Paulette Langen Wagner. They met and got engaged after their third date in 1971 and were married on July 1, 1972. Mr. Wagner’s survivors include his sons   Peter Wagner of Bedford, Texas, and Jonathan Wagner and spouse Chelsea Phillips-Wagner, and his two granddaughters, Aurelia and Florence Wagner, of Austin, Texas. Other survivors include his sisters, Patricia Urquhart of Elgin, Illinois, and Michelle Devitt of DeKalb, Illinois, and their children.

There will not be an in-person service, but an online memorial is being developed where friends can share their memories of Mr. Wagner. This fits his personality. As he introduced himself: “I’m Joe Wagner. I talk to computers better than I talk to people.” He did that very well.

The family requests that expressions of sympathy take the form of contributions to Gilbert and Sullivan Austin http://www.gilbertsullivan.org/ or the Mensa Foundation Scholarship Program https://www.mensafoundation.org/what-we-do/scholarships/ .