Joseph Fleming Horky

Joseph Fleming “Jeff” Horky, 77, of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, passed away on January 17, 2022, after a period of declining health.

Born in Abington, Pennsylvania, on October 6, 1944, he was the son of the late Joseph and Agnes Kennedy (Mackey) Horky, The family lived briefly in DuBois, Pennsylvania, before moving to Brookville, Pennsylvania, in 1945 after his father became President of the Brookville Locomotive Works. His sister, Jean – now Jean B. Hall of Norwood, Massachusetts – was born there in 1947.

Jeff attended Brookville public schools and, during his senior year, was one of 400 student delegates selected to attend the national Youth Conference on the Atom in Chicago. He graduated in 1962 as valedictorian of his class.

Having aspired to be an astrophysicist since the age of 6, he attended Cornell, one of the few U.S. universities offering courses in this discipline. While there, however, his interests shifted to the fast-growing field of computers, and he graduated in 1967 with a degree in Electrical Engineering and a membership in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

He was hired as a Design Engineer by the Burroughs Corporation in Paoli, Pennsylvania, and lived in nearby West Chester. He worked on the B500 series of large computers during a time when Burroughs was earning a reputation for innovation and was promoted to Project Engineer in 1979.

In 1986, when Burroughs merged with Sperry Univac to form Unisys, Jeff moved from his long-time base in metro Philadelphia to Huntington Beach, California, where he was promoted to Section Manager. His parents joined him in southern California shortly thereafter. And on June 23, 1990, he married his longtime girlfriend, Mary Dean Sprinkle, at the Mountain View Inn in Norfolk, Connecticut.

In 1991, Jeff was promoted to Program/Configuration Manager, a position that gave him responsibility for final release of hardware changes for 1/3 of the facility’s mainframes and 75% of its peripherals – as well as numerous opportunities for world travel to Europe and New Zealand. In order to qualify him for other advances, Unisys also provided Jeff with special training in Quality Control, which enabled him to receive ISO certification.

Jeff left Unisys in 1994, and after he and Mary moved east to her ancestral home region of Shepherdstown, WV, he worked as a freelance ISO Auditor and then in-house for Wilcoxon Research and Sexton Can Company. Several years later, he retired.

Mary passed away on March 29, 2015, but thanks to caring home health aides, was able to remain at home during her last years, as was Jeff during his.

Throughout his life, Jeff was a voracious reader – favoring history, historical fiction, science fiction, and mysteries. He served on the Shepherdstown Water Board and shared enthusiasms with Mary for gardening and the local historical society, as well.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Shepherdstown Public Library, 100 East German Street, P.O. Box 278, Shepherdstown, WV 25443.