If there was a Sequim Citizen of the Century award, Jerry Angiuli, 90, could be in the running.

He seemed to live and breathe Sequim through his work for children, advocating for the bypass, running a successful tire business, and much more.

And while his dad accumulated many accolades, Angiuli’s son JD said his dad’s 27 successful years owning Tire Service Co. (formerly Jack’s Tire Service) in downtown Sequim often showed what kind of person he strived to be.

“I remember as a kid, around 16, working there and seeing someone come in talking to my dad,” JD Angiuli said.

“‘Hey, Jerry, I need some new tires,’ the man said, and I remember my dad looking with a tread depth gauge and telling him he didn’t need new tires.

“‘Are you planning to drive to New York and back?’ my dad asked. ‘You got another year or two on these and you’ve got nothing to worry about.’”

JD said “you could count on it” if his dad told you something.

“He had a huge group of customers that came from all over and local agencies like the police and fire department who wanted him to do their brakes and tires,” JD Angiuli said.

Honesty, hard work and showing compassion seemed to be part of his creed through his constant service-mindedness.

Angiuli died on April 22 of natural causes at the age of 90 surrounded by family.

He’s survived by his wife Geri Angiuli of 72 years. They have six children, 13 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 10 at St. Joseph Catholic Church, 121 E. Maple St., followed by a reception in the church’s banquet hall at noon.

Photo courtesy of Angiuli family/ Trifone and Jerry Angiuli stand together while working on their Sequim family farm.

Beginnings

Angiuli was born September 23, 1932 to Trifone of Italy and Concetta Angiuli of Sequim. At age 8, he started driving tractors and working in the fields.

His father passed away when he was 10, and he and his uncle Luigi handled the farm with Angiuli waking at 3 a.m. to milk and feed livestock before school, JD Angiuli said.

“He was a hard working guy,” he said.

Angiuli played football, and worked after school, weekends and summers at the Clallam Co-Op. He said in a previous interview that he helped install much of the irrigation in the area through his job there.

He graduated in 1950 from Sequim High School, and said in an interview commemorating his class’ 60th reunion, he’s never lived more than two miles from the high school. “Some might say I was never smart enough to find my way out of here,” he joked.

JD Angiuli said his dad loved Sequim and was proud that “the longest commute he ever had was eight blocks.”

After graduation, he met his future wife at a dance in Port Angeles. Geri was a senior at Port Angeles High School, and they married Jan. 6, 1951. She finished high school at Sequim High, JD Angiuli said, as his parents and many others anticipated their husbands being drafted into the Korean War. But he never was.

Angiuli worked at the Co-Op until March 1964, to take on partial ownership of Jack’s Tire Service. He eventually bought it outright in 1973 and renamed it Tire Service Co. He would go on to retire Dec. 31, 1990.

JD Angiuli said his dad always gave someone a chance at the shop with credit.

“My dad always said, ‘I can give them one shot so they can prove that they can be trusted,’” he said.

Photo courtesy of Angiuli family Jerry and Geri Angiuli stand together after being newly married in 1951.

Accolades

At age 43, Angiuli was voted 1975 Sequim Citizen of the Year for his time as commissioner of the Sequim Little Football League and director of the Sequim Little Baseball League.

“The young people have faith in what you’re doing for them,” he said in a Sequim Gazette article.

“It’s very rewarding to work with the young people and I’m sure, with the youngsters coming behind us, we will have some money in the Social Security fund when we get there.”

He was later recognized as a Grand Pioneer of the 2012 Sequim Irrigation Festival and named to the Pacific International Trap Shooting Association Hall of Fame in 2018.

He had previously served on the Sequim School board for eight years, and later advocated to help pass a bond to build a new high school.

Angiuli also helped the Class of 1977 maintain its extracurricular activities after cutbacks following failed levies. They dedicated their annual to him for his dedication to preserving activites for students.

“My dad really cared about kids,” JD Angiuli said.

His dad was always known as the guy kids enjoyed playing with, he said.

One game against Port Townsend, Angiuli taught his players good sportsmanship facing a team that hadn’t scored all season. Up big in the fourth quarter, JD Angiuli said his dad called timeout and told his players not to tackle their ball handler.

Despite some objections, they went through with it, he said, the PT player scored a touchdown and teammates dog piled him.

“You would have thought they won the championship because they screamed and yelled and were so excited,” JD Angiuli said.

“After the game he had his team on the bleachers and they could hear the other team getting in their cars and still cheering.

“He told his players, ‘This is what it’s all about’,” JD Angiuli said.

Photo courtesy of Angiuli family/ Jerry Angiuli, center, sits with his wife Geri, on his right, and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren at Christmas time in 2018.

Outdoorsman

Being outside was the norm for Angiuli, JD said of his dad, and he felt “fishing in Dungeness was world class.”

As an avid hunter, he helped contain elk, coyote and seal populations and served as Fish and Wildlife’s hunting coordinator for 15 years. He was also awarded the agency’s Volunteer of the Year in 2007.

A growing elk population became a problem, JD said, as they were tearing down farmer’s fences and fields, and wiping out creek beds, so his dad was contacted to help because he was told “you’re the only one in the community people trust to have on their property to (cull) down the herd.”

Through his years as hunting coordinator, he’d help train others with hunting safety, and one of his favorite stories was helping a qualified student with Multiple Sclerosis shoot an elk.

The boy asked to take a picture with it, and Angiuli and other men carried the boy out and he hugged the elk, JD said.

“Not an ounce of elk meat went wasted,” he said.

At different times, Angiuli delivered elk meat to in-need elder residents of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe who later honored him, according to a Sequim Gazette article.

Angiuli also served as the trap shooting coach for Sequim FFA for many years, and joined the Port Angeles Gun Club in 1947 and he and a few others helped save it in the late 1960s.

Through his decades of competitive shooting, he shot 250,000-plus rounds at targets and shot with some of the best shooters in the country, JD said.

Sequim Gazette file photo Jerry Angiuli speaks to a crowd in August 1999 prior to the opening of the Sequim bypass.

Bypass

One of his accomplishments late in life was advocating for the Sequim bypass project that opened in August 1999.

In the summer, it’d take someone 20 to 30 minutes to travel from one side of town to the other, JD said, so “my dad was a big advocate for the bypass.”

One of his tasks was siting with families and helping them negotiate sales of their property to the state.

Angiuli said at the bypass opening he congratulated himself on living long enough to see it open.

He was the second person to drive over it on Sequim Avenue.

Sequim Gazette file photo by Matthew Nash/ Jerry Angiuli signs a commemorative picture at the 60th class reunion of the Sequim High School Class of 1950.