[Chrysler300] Jerry Kocur

As many of you have may have heard we have lost one of the legends of our club earlier this month. Jerry Kocur with his Royal Ruby convertible K was a staple at our meets for years. He has the distinction of having driven his convertible K, a car that he ordered and bought new, to well over 570,000 miles, many of those were put on the K heading to our meets, this is a club record that I doubt will ever be surpassed. Jerry's first meet was in 1977 at the Mt. Pocono, NJ Meet. In his 40 years with the Club he attended 51 Meets over the years, most of them with his 300 K. He attended one with his 300F, and one with his Dodge Challenger. Jerry told me the story of how he bought his 300 K. Back in 1963 he was doing pretty good in business, Jerry was a CFO of a large company, and went to his local Chrysler dealer. Jerry wanted a 300 J because his name was Jerry and he thought that was a good idea to have a letter car that matched his name. I followed his lead as well, or at least that is what I told my Dawn when I bought my J, that I had to get one because it matched my name. Anyways the dealer told him that they were sold out and that he could not get a J. He asked if they were going to build a K and at that time the dealer of course, could not answer that question. But we now know that they did go on with the letter car series, and built them, so Jerry ordered his K and felt good as the K would reflect his last name as well. Jerry ordered his K with several interesting features, like no outside rear view mirrors, he has the dash mounted mirror and he opted for a tachometer in place of the vacuum gauge. For those of you that had an opportunity to converse with Jerry you would have discovered that he was articulate and very well read. He and Dawn would have lengthy discussions from everything like growing asparagus, cooking peach pies, and politics. Jerry was not on the list server , or the internet, and we often we would get a follow up letter after a meet with additional material on whatever we were discussing at that time. I will miss reading those well written letters. Jerry loved the 300 Club International, and the people in our club so much so that he has had the Club logo inscribed on his headstone. Jerry sent Dawn and I a picture of the stone several years ago in one of his letters to us. For those of you that are planning on attending, Jerry’s service will be at St. Denis Church in Douglas, MA on Friday, September 8, at 11:30 AM. A reception will follow after burial in St. Mary's Cemetery. Several of our club members that I have spoken with are already making plans to attend.

Jamie Hyde

585-465-0067 cell/text