Jerry Thomas Howard

Jerry Thomas Howard, known to family and constituents as JT, was a Democratic Missouri legislator, farmer and Korean War veteran from Dexter who spent more than four decades in public life. He was born on March 28, 1936, in Oak Ridge, Missouri, the son of John Thomas Howard and Sylvia Ann Brecheisen Howard, and died on September 17, 2026, at Regional One Health in Memphis, Tennessee, aged 90.

After Army service in Korea he joined the Missouri National Guard for sixteen years, rising to first lieutenant and leaving with an honorable discharge. He studied at Southeast Missouri State University, earning majors in agriculture and biology with minors in chemistry and history, and in 2000 the university named him an Alumni Merit Award winner from the College of Polytechnic Studies. Agriculture remained the through line of his private life: he raised quarter horses, farmed, and worked as a farm credit manager for agricultural companies, continuing to farm until the end of his life.

Howard entered the Missouri House of Representatives in 1972 and served through 1976, returned after a 1987 special election, and served again from 1988 to 1990. In 1990 he won a special election to the Missouri Senate for the 25th District, then won full terms in 1992 and 1996. Official Senate biographies from his tenure list membership on Southern Governors Conference work and the Southern Legislative Conference project on infant mortality, alongside civic ties to the Methodist Church, Elks, Eagles, Masonic bodies, Lions and the American Legion. He was a past Exalted Ruler of Dexter Elks Lodge and a longtime Scottish Rite Mason and Moolah Shriner.

On July 14, 1973, in Thayer, Missouri, he married Shirla Rathjen McFaddin, who died on June 17, 2015. He is survived by sons John Trevor Howard and W. P. H. Bill McFadden IV, daughter Elilza Jane Winfrey, eleven grandchildren, three great-granddaughters, and longtime companion Dora Cole of Poplar Bluff. Visitation and a celebration of life were set for November 20, 2026, at Mathis Funeral Home in Dexter, with a private family interment to follow. Memorial gifts were suggested for the American Diabetes Association, Missouri Farmers Care and Shriners Children's Hospital.