After his mother died in 1963 and his dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Sam lived with his sister, Juanita Brown, and her husband, Joe, graduating from Hastings High School in 1969.
Like his father, Sam was a talented artist and studied art in college. He enlisted in the Navy in 1970 and served on the U.S.S. Apache during the Vietnam War. He was honorably discharged in 1973. He went back to school and took carpentry classes and settled in Lincoln in 1978.
He worked several years for Burlington Northern Railroad and more than 20 years for Quebecor/World Inc.
Sam learned to play music by ear and he and several buddies from his railroad days formed a band that played in the Lincoln area in the 1970s and early ‘80s under the names Nightshift, Backstage Johnny, and Wild Turkey.
He met the love of his life, Catherine (Dorenbach) Whalen in the breakroom at the printing company. She baked him a birthday cake and the son of a baker fell in love. They married in 1991. She died in 2014.
Survivors include three sisters, Juanita (Jim) Hemming of Hastings; Sandra (Steve) Heinz of York, and Nancy (John) Friend of Lake Charles, Louisiana, and many nieces and nephews, who knew Sam as the cool uncle.