WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY ALUMNI MAGAZINE
Fall 2014

Jerry Blue: Entrepreneur and "A+" Banker

BY CONNIE KACHEL WHITE

Jerry BlueBefore joining Wichita’s Twin Lakes Bank & Trust as president in 1985, V. Jerry Blue ’59, a University of Wichita accounting graduate, had founded two companies: the All American Mold Laboratories Inc., which manufactured custom earmolds for the hearing health care industry, in 1964, and, in 1980, the Dallas-based custom hearing aid manufacturer Omni Hearing Aid Inc., which was acquired in 1984 by Rohrer Pharmaceuticals.

Blue had begun his successful entrepreneurial career in 1959 when he collaborated with his father in the purchase of Radionic Hearing Aid Service in downtown Wichita. 

When Blue bought the Twin Lakes bank in 1985, it was already an “A” rated bank. By 1988 Blue had fine tuned the operation into Wichita’s only bank with an “A+” rating by Sheshunoff, an Austin, Texas-based bank analyst.

“I think like an entrepreneur,” Blue told the Wichita Business Journal when interviewed about the new rating. In 1989, this entrepreneurial-minded banker purchased Southwest National Bank & Trust, for which he served as chairman of the board.

A quiet supporter of Wichita and his alma mater, Blue was a longtime contributor to the WSU Alumni Association’s Shocker Auction, among many other university undertakings. From 1978 to 1981, he owned the National Baseball Congress, an organization of amateur and semi-professional baseball leagues that holds its annual championship tournament in Wichita. 

Jerry Blue died Sept. 22, 2014, in his hometown of Wichita. 

 


IN MEMORIAM

Wilbur Elsea: WuShock's Creator

Wilbur Elsea ’50 took up his second career as an artist after 40 years as an advertising executive — and with, to Shockers anyway, his most beloved artistic creation already under his belt: WuShock.

George Ablah: An Eye for Deals

George J. Ablah fs ’51, president and board chair of Ablah Enterprises, was a real estate developer with dealings in Dallas, LA, Minneapolis and Wichita, where his successes include Terra Cotta Tower, Tallgrass and Willowbend.

Kathryn Griffith: Sense of Civility

Kathryn (Pearcy) Griffith ’47 earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Wichita and went on to receive a master’s degree from Syracuse and a doctorate from the University of Chicago.

Anthony P. Gythiel: Renaissance Man

Anthony P. Gythiel, history professor and WSU’s resident medievalist until his retirement in 2010, was a perfectionist. His work demanded it.

Bob Langenwalter: Five Varied Views

Robert “Bob” G. Langenwalter ’50, longtime Wichita banker and investor, was always a man on the move.

Hazel Miller: Honor Woman

The year Hazel D. (Shanklin) Miller ’51 graduated from the University of Wichita with a bachelor’s degree in general studies, she was one of more than 400 graduating seniors and one of only six seniors of distinction to garner Women’s Honor Group accolades.

Jerry Blue: Entrepreneur and "A+" Banker

Jerry Blue began his successful entrepreneurial career in 1959 when he collaborated with his father in the purchase of Radionic Hearing Aid Service in downtown Wichita.

In Memoriam

Leaving lasting legacies are these Wichita State University alumni and friends.