Elmer was born on February 5, 1935 in Gordonville, Missouri, to Edna C. Hoyer and Rev. Hugo H. Hoyer. Gordonville is a very small town of about 100 population. He started first grade at Gordonville Grade School in the fall of 1940 at the age of 5 years and didn't turn 6 until February of 1941. This school was a one room school for 8 grades and a second smaller room for the first two years of high school. Elmer is the youngest of 5 children. His youngest sister, Marian, is 3 years older than him and they played school every day when she got home and the teacher was worried that Elmer would learn too much at home and not be interested in first grade. He went to this school until the fall of 1945 when he was in fifth grade. His father accepted a call to Zion Lutheran Church in Fairmont, Oklahoma and he continued his fifth grade at Zion Lutheran School. He completed grade school there in 1948. This was a two room school with first through fourth grades in one room and grades five through eight in the other room. The teacher of grades five through eight taught grades seven and eight together and Elmer completed both grades in one year.

Elmer started 9th grade at Garber High School in Garber, Oklahoma in the fall of 1948. His father began to have medical problems in 1948. He had to stop being a minister in Fairmont because of his health and the family moved to Wichita, Kansas in the spring 1949 where his problem was diagnosed as gall bladder. Elmer continued his 9th grade at Hamilton Jr. High (at that time it taught 7th, 8th and 9th grades as Jr. High) in Wichita. Elmer started his 10th grade at East High School in Wichita. After surgery, his father went back to being a pastor and accepted a call to Aliceville, Kansas. Aliceville was a very small town of less that 100 population and had no high school. Elmer went to Westphalia, about 5 miles from Aliceville, to complete the 10th grade and then also the 11th and 12th grades. He graduated from Westphalia High School in spring 1952.

After attending four schools in four years and graduating from Westphalia High School, he launched a short career with the telephone company, climbing poles. After seeing him come home with creosote down the front of his shirt, from sliding down poles instead of climbing down them, Elmer's parents urged him to look for a job in Wichita. That was the end of his Life in a Parsonage. After coming to Wichita, Elmer saw that The Boeing Airplane Company was hiring drafting trainees and paying them while in training for 8 weeks. He took this opportunity and after this training, became a Draftsman for Boeing in their Engineering Department. While working as a Draftsman, Elmer started working on an Electrical Engineering Degree part time at Wichita University (later to become Wichita State University). lt took him 8 years, but he got his Electrical Engineering Degree in 1962. When he came to Wichita, he became a member of Trinity Lutheran Church. He got interested in their youth program called the Walther League and started going to their weekend camps that were held at Camp Bide-A-Wee which was near Park City just north of Wichita. He also became interested in working with the one who was calling the square dances at this camp. He started calling some of these dances. At the end of one of these camps, a girl there needed a ride home and he offered to take her home. Soon after that, he called her and asked for a date but she turned him down. She thought he was too old for her. This girl was Cecelia (known as Sally) Harris. She was 16 and he was 20 at that time. About 6 years later, they were both youth leaders, she at Holy Cross Lutheran and he at Trinity. They met again at a youth leaders meeting and went for coffee after the meeting. This was in the spring of 1961 and they started dating that summer. They dated about 6 months and got married on January 20, 1962.

In the spring semester of 1962, he was taking a class from the Department Chair and this teacher asked him to teach the class one time because he was going to be out of town. He told the Chair, "But l'm taking the class from you." The Chair responded, "That's ok, you can talk about your senior project." He loved that experience so much that he decided he wanted to become a professor as his occupation. He applied for an Assistantship at the University of Missouri-Columbia and got one. As a result, he and Sally moved to Columbia and he proceeded to work on his M.S. degree and continued on for his Ph.D. degree. He completed all but his dissertation when, in the fall of 1966 he accepted a teaching position at Wichita State University as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering. He completed his dissertation and graduated from the University of Missouri in the spring of 1967. He then was promoted to Associate Professor in 1971 and became Professor in 1980. He became a Professor Emeritus in the spring of 2001.

He and Sally have three children, Dorothy, David born in Columbia, Missouri and Daniel born in Wichita, Kansas. After moving back to Wichita, they became members of Trinity Lutheran Church. They owned a mobile home while in Columbia and for a year when they came back to Wichita. ln the spring of 1968 they bought a home in the Bel Aire lmprovement District, later in 1980 to become the City of Bel Aire. When Dan was about 5, they changed churches and became members of Christ Lutheran Church. This church was much closer to where they lived.

Elmer is preceded in death by his wife, Sally, and parents, Hugo and Edna Hoyer.  Elmer is survived by his daughter, Dorothy (Eric), and sons David (Irene) and Daniel, 6 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be at 12:00PM on March 12, 2026 at Old Mission Mortuary with funeral service to follow at 1:00PM, burial to take place at 2:00PM at Wichita Park.