This aw-shucks, good-guy journalist ‘truly was the proverbial kid in a candy shop’

Longtime Wichita journalist Jerry Siebenmark was known for three things: his love of aviation, his obsession with watches and a genuine aw-shucks, good-guy quality that made him one of the least-polarizing reporters in town.

“You could tell he thought he was doing the coolest job on the planet, and it was fun to watch,” said Wichita Eagle visuals editor Jaime Green.

Former Wichita marketer Deanna Harms said one of the many things she liked about Siebenmark “was his childlike enthusiasm for his profession and the aviation industry. He truly was the proverbial kid in a candy shop.”

Siebenmark, 56, died Monday, just over three years after being diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer that had metastasized.

Those who knew him best knew that his love of aviation and watches was exceeded only by his steadfast devotion to his family.

As he was in the ICU for the last week, his wife, Carri, said, “We even called him . . . to ask him how to hook up the wireless printer.”

Journalist Tom Shine is including a short segment on Siebenmark, his friend and former employee, on his KMUW show “The Range” this week.

“He was a big guy with a shaved head. He had a wide, gap-toothed grin that put people at ease. He liked to have a little dip of tobacco when writing on deadline. And he collected wristwatches like Imelda Marcos collected shoes.”

Siebenmark always kept a framed photo of his father, a newscaster in his native Idaho Falls, Idaho, on his desk at work. Carri Siebenmark said a young Jerry fell in love with the TV station, but broadcasting was not to be his future “because he says, ‘Um,’ every five seconds that he talks.”

She said if you played a game that you had to take a shot of liquor every time you heard “um,” “You’d be on the floor in just a minute.”

At 18, Siebenmark went into the Air Force.

“He wanted to see the world,” his wife said.

His hopes of being a military police officer were dashed because he struggled with a gun test. Though Carri Siebenmark said, “That was very upsetting for him,” their son, Cal, said his father told him, “If I had passed that test, I never would have met your mom.”

After leaving the Air Force, Siebenmark became an EMT in Wichita and met his wife, a nurse, through her job.

At 27, he started college at Wichita State University, and near the time he was finishing up school, he and his wife started a family.

“He needed to figure out his calling,” Carri Siebenmark said.

Though Siebenmark pursued a communications degree, the late WSU professor Les Anderson guided him toward a career in journalism.

Siebenmark would take a baby Cal with him when he worked nights at the Sunflower school newspaper.

“He was just super hands-on because he had to be,” Carri Siebenmark said.

Siebenmark always liked planes, but at his first job out of college at the Wichita Business Journal, Carri Siebenmark said he “then figured out, oh, I can write about them.”

When The Eagle started its Business Today section in 2006, Shine was business editor and had a series of lunches with business people and community leaders and asked each who he should hire to write for it.

“His name came up every time — like, first,” Shine said.

Both Shine, now KMUW’s director of news and public affairs, and Siebenmark’s final boss, Matt Thurber, editor-in-chief at Aviation International News Media Group, said hiring Siebenmark was a no-brainer.

What struck Shine most was when Siebenmark left the Business Journal and contemplated what to do with his Rolodex.

“Jerry thought about taking his, and he thought, no, that’s not right. I should leave it here,” Shine said. “That’s who he was.”

Whatever

When she met her future husband, Carri Siebenmark thought he was easy to talk to and — she laughs at this today — easygoing.

Though she said her husband always “went along with everything that I said,” he wasn’t the carefree type. In fact, he fretted — a lot.

She describes their personalities as characters from Winnie-the-Pooh. She’s Tigger, bouncing all over the place, and he was “the biggest Eeyore.”

“He would quit watching games if his team was behind,” she said. “The glass wasn’t just half full with Jerry. . . . You didn’t have a glass.”

Except, that is, when it came to cancer.

“I’ll just remember him as somebody — despite getting handed the worst deck of cards anybody could get — he never, ever expressed any bitterness to me at all,” Thurber said. “Every time we talked, he was always positive about what was happening. He was always hopeful.”

He also always kept working whenever he could.

“Even when he was sick, he did the work of more than one person the whole time,” Thurber said, adding that Siebenmark cherished aviation trade shows when he was able to go.

“He never talked about dying,” his wife said.

In fact, he rebuffed her prodding to make end-of-life plans. He did not plan to allow his life to end.

“He was focusing on being alive.”

And he still found ways to have fun.

Thurber recently learned Siebenmark and a news editor had a secret contest going to see who could get the other to laugh during weekly online staff meetings “by Slacking each other little digs during the meeting.”

Verbal sparring of all sorts is a regular part of any newsroom.

Shine said when Siebenmark would tire of it, he would signal the end of the jousting with an exceedingly drawn out, “Whatever.”

Every time Siebenmark ended a call with his wife while at work, Shine said, “He would say, ‘I love you.’ ” He was loud enough that everyone could hear, and those nearest to him also could hear a little smooch he made into the phone. His colleagues gave him grief over it.

“Who was that on the phone, Jerry? Hope that was your wife.”

Whatever.

‘He sure dresses like one’

Among the places Siebenmark will be missed is Instagram. He was known for sharing different watches daily.

In newsrooms full of men dressed like eighth grade science teachers in short-sleeved shirts, Siebenmark also was known for having starched Oxfords in a variety of Easter egg colors.

“I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know whether he can write about bankers, but he sure dresses like one,’ ” Shine said.

No one knows for sure how many watches Siebenmark had.

“Oh, more than he needed to, to be quite honest,” said Greg Breeden of Watch Works near Central and Ridge Road.

“We’re only married because I don’t know how many he has,” Carri Siebenmark said.

Breeden said Jerry Siebenmark was part of “a group of guys I call the Saturday groupies,” who would get together to talk watches and trade them over beer and tacos.

Among other brands, Siebenmark collected Seiko watches, though “he started out with an Invicta, which we all gave him crap for,” Breeden said of the fashion watch.

“He was an inspiration to fight cancer the way he did. I admired him for it,” Breeden said. “I told his sister, it’s going to leave a big hole in the brotherhood.”

Siebenmark was preceded in death by his parents, David and Patricia Siebenmark. He is survived by his wife; children, Cal (Kelsey Jaynes) and Carli Siebenmark; sisters, Becky Vacanti (Dan) and Jane Gardner (Brig); sister-in-law, Amy Cox; and nephews and niece, David, Stephen, Nick, Christian and Ashley.

A funeral will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday at College Hill United Methodist Church, and memorials may be made to the church.

Though he never was a pilot himself, Siebenmark relished every chance he had to fly. Once, he was supposed to go flying with former Eagle aviation reporter Molly McMillin, whom he eagerly succeeded when she left to be managing editor of business aviation for the Aviation Week Network.

Siebenmark had to compact his 6-foot-4-inch body to fit in her 1956 Tri-Pacer.

“His tall frame made it difficult for him to climb inside the little plane,” McMillin said. “After finally folding himself up, getting inside and getting the door closed, the airplane had a dead battery and wouldn’t start.”

It’s a story Siebenmark always liked to tell. Now, McMillin is the one who wants to tell it.

“It brings a smile.”