David Ray Jassman

DEATH NOTICE
David Ray Jassman, age 86, of Lusk, died on June 25, 2025, at the Niobrara Community Hospital in Lusk.

A funeral service will be held Wednesday, July 2, 2025, at 10:00 A.M. at Pier Funeral Home in Lusk, interment to follow at Lusk Cemetery. After services a reception will be held at the Niobrara County Fairgrounds in Lusk.

Pier Funeral Home in Lusk is in charge of arrangements.

OBITUARY

David Ray Jassman left this life in the early morning of June 23, 2025. Born to Christian “Chris” Jassman and Emma Paige Wilson on August 11, 1938, on the Adam Schmierer homestead just outside of Node, Wyoming, Dave joined older sisters Helen Mae and Mary Ann with younger sister Judith Valerie (Judy) joining the family 18 months later. Dave was one of three pupils in the first grade at Node school. In the later part of second grade, the family moved North of Lusk. He attended the rest of grade school, Junior High and High School in Lusk.

After graduating from Niobrara County High School in 1957, David traveled around the State of Wyoming working on ranches and doing construction work. After returning to Lusk in the spring of 1964, he met Patricia “Trish” Talbott and her daughter Tammy, who were new to Lusk. Dave and Trish were married in December 1965. The family moved for work to the Lyman-Mountain View, Wyoming area and eventually moved to Laramie to work on Trish’s family ranch, The Talbott Ranch. They left to come back to Lusk in the fall of 1972 where Dave and his Uncle John Jassman owned and operated the Silver Dollar Bar. Dave and Trish became professional bar tenders, underpaid therapists, champion bowlers and cribbage players as well as great dancers.

Thomas Ray Jassman was born in February 1973. One more trip to the ranch world, the family of four moved for work on the Twin Pine Ranch northwest of Wheatland where the couple eventually divorced in the fall of 1976. David returned to Lusk where he again worked tending bar, but this time as an employee. He bought his “Little Shack” on Linn Street and in the spring of 1984, he went to work for the Town of Lusk as the landfill operator a position from which he retired in 2000.

Dave said there were two great accomplishments in his life – 1) being “Dad” and/or “Poppa” to his children, and 2) his sobriety. He entered alcoholic treatment on November 15, 1985. He learned and practiced AA’s “One Day at a Time” program religiously. Beginning November 16, 1985, he kept track of each day he lived without a drink. Dave was looking forward to celebrating his 40th “birthday” with AA this year. He was sober for 14,464 days (39 years, 7 months and 7 days).

Dave shared the message of sobriety and the programs he learned through Alcoholics Anonymous to countless people, including inmates at the Lusk Women’s Center and with the small but mighty attendance at the Lusk Saturday morning AA meetings. Dave became a born-again Christian after entering treatment.

Many Lusk residents will remember when Dave went on the “Cabbage Soup Diet.” He walked up to ten miles a day in and around the Town of Lusk. He lost nearly sixty pounds which gave him energy to maintain his beautiful flowers and yard around his “Little Shack.”

He joked about being “a jack of all trades and master of none” but his humor served him well. Dave never met a stranger. He always had a story, a joke, or a quick-witted one-liner. Dave was always the funniest person in the room, regardless of when or where – up until his passing, he was still making people smile. He enjoyed meeting new people but was very much a loner. He lived alone but was never lonely. He cherished his solitude, and he was an avid reader. He never tired of learning and reading about the Native American Indian.

Dave was so very thankful for the care and love he received from his closest friend and confidant, Wendy Lemons; for his neighbors Eva Titchener, Mike Larson and Jack McConaughey and his friends Leon Lemons, Monty Carland, Richard Waldock and Bruce Miller, just to mention a few.

Dave is preceded in death by two children, Kim Camille Jassman and James Chris “JC” Mangus: his parents Chris Jassman and Emma Fillerup, sisters Helen Mae (Moriarty) and Mary Ann (Hart). He is survived by daughter Tammy Powell, (Laramie), son Thomas Jassman (Heather)(Riverton) and grandchildren Brendan Thomas, Kynzee Mikayla and Taygen Joshua Jassman; Sister Judith Valerie Lamb (Torrington), her daughter Valerie Sharp (Ray) (Torrington) and one other niece and nephew.

The family thanks the Niobrara County community for its never-ending help, love, and support. Dave was so proud of his heritage of being a Niobrara County native.

J.D. Williams will officiate, and lunch will be provided by Lisa Williams and the Roadrunners Homemakers Club at the Niobrara County Fairgrounds following interment at the Lusk Cemetery.

In lieu of cut flowers, donations will be accepted for live flowers and trees as his children are remodeling the “Little Shack” and hope to restore and replant the yard in Dave’s memory.

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