Jesse Ray Yocum

Bay City lost Jesse Ray Yocum on November 18, 2025. He was 77. Born in Bay City on March 22, 1948, into a Ukrainian-American household that treated work as a language. He learned early that a day is something you finish, not something you wait for. He oiled undercutters that never held still. A ballast undercutter oil can wiped outlasted two bosses. Colleagues still mention a ballast undercutter oil can wiped. He and Betty married in 1972 and raised a son and a daughter without needing an audience. After Betty's death in 2018, he held to quiet habits—coffee before dawn, a tended yard, a voice on the phone that still checked in. Neighbors remember covered dishes that arrived without a speech. Mornings were his favorite shift at home. He died in Bay City, on streets that already knew his pace. The extra coffee is still in the thermos. What remains is not a legend but a practice: showing up, keeping a promise, leaving a place better than you found it. His life was the kind America is built from and too often forgets to name.