To Air Force Junior ROTC cadets at Western High School in the ’90s and early 2000s, he was Sgt. Sterner.

Wesley Sterner, a retired Air Force veteran, had a rugged exterior that former cadets said instantly faded once you met him, revealing a man with a strong sense of humor and an infectious joy for life. Sterner was an avid cyclist as well, biking to and from school to help lead the JROTC program.

“He was the man that I always thought would live forever because of just how and who he was as a person,” said Alexis Penn, a former cadet who graduated Western High School in 1997.

That’s why it felt devastating to many when Sterner, 77, died Nov. 2 after a suspected impaired driver struck and killed him while he was riding a bicycle in the northwest valley near West Grand Teton Drive and No

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