Aubrey Leland “Wightie” Wight peacefully passed away on June 24, 2014.  He was born in Brewer, ME on December 16, 1924.  After graduation from Higgins Classical Institute in 1942, he volunteered for the Army Air Corps.  He met Betty Valentine, his life soul mate of over 70 years, at the USO at Fort Myers beach while stationed at Buckingham Army Air Field. Following discharge after the war, he returned to Maine with his wife and son.  After a couple of years and the birth of a daughter, he returned to the sunny climes of Fort Myers where he resided for the rest of his life. Trained as an airplane mechanic, Wightie transferred that talent to automobiles and spent much of his life in the automobile business.  In the 1950’s he was the service manager and then a salesman for Lee Motors, the Ford dealership on Main St.  His interest in cars led to his building a stock car with his friend Mack Jones, who was the service manager at the Chrysler dealership.  They placed a Chrysler 300 engine in a 1923 Plymouth coupe and Wightie raced the modified stock car on the local tracks between Bradenton and Naples. In February 1956 and 1957, they took it to Daytona and he qualified for the 125 mile Sportsman and Modified Race at 123.119 and 111.94 MPH respectively.  He continued to race a stock car locally until the mid-1960’s.  Wightie’s automotive career continued with ownership and operation of a gas service station on Cleveland Ave near the intersection with McGregor Blvd and Anderson Ave (now MLK Blvd), an auto repair business with mechanical repair/maintenance, paint & body, upholstery, and an automotive junkyard on Anderson Ave, an upholstery shop and used car sales on Palm Beach Blvd at Seaboard St. In the early 1970’s he set forth on a new initiative - building his own games and joining, as an independent game operator, a summer carnival circuit that played in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida.  In the winters, he set up shop at local flea markets selling all manner of used goods and ultimately, after Betty’s retirement from Lee Memorial Hospital, collected, bought, and sold gas engines and participated in gas engine shows and flea markets up and down the East Coast, spending the winter in Ft Myers, FL and the summer at Beech Hill Pond in Otis, ME. Wightie is survived by his wife of almost 70 years, Betty, son Terry of Alexandria, VA, two daughters Patti Robertson of Suwanee GA and Virginia (John) Aghajanian of Alpharetta GA, and four granddaughters, Elizabeth and Teresa Robertson and Laura and Mary Aghajanian.  

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