Jack Dunham

Former Alaskan educator Jack Lee Dunham died at his home in Sequim, Washington on April 4, 2013. He was 84.

Dunham was born on August 21, 1928, in Guymon, Oklahoma to Joe and Isabelle (Armstrong) Dunham. He lived through the Dust Bowl in the Panhandle regions of Oklahoma and Texas, working at his family's ranching, farming and dairy efforts. He graduated from high school in Pampa, Texas and attended Sam Houston State Teachers College in Huntsville, Texas, where he earned a degree in education. He performed in traveling musical productions, sold insurance and roughnecked in the north Texas oilfields until the Bureau of Indian Affairs gave him the chance to use his degree.

In 1955 he moved his family to the Bering Sea village of Quinhagak, Alaska. In addition to teaching, his duties included maintaining radio contact with the outside world, administering government programs and providing primary medical care to the remote village. He taught and later became a district superintendent in several other rural Alaska settlements off the road system, including Mountain Village, Togiak, Afognak, Tanana and Newhalen. He also lived and taught in Homer, Haines, Kenny Lake and Anchorage, as well as in Colorado, where he lived, at various times, in Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Estes Park, Denver and Evergreen.

During the summer, when not teaching, he worked as a tally scow operator in the Bristol Bay salmon fishery, a cat skinner on the Swanson River Road, septic tank pumper, longshoreman, dude ranch manager and commercial fisherman. He built homes in Estes Park, Homer and Hawaii. While living in bush Alaska he taught himself to fly and made two prop-powered snowmachines from the parts of wrecked airplanes.

In the 1980s, having retired, he took the single-mast sailing ship Rodonis from Alaska to Hawaii, an experience he later recalled as being, "Six weeks wide awake in sheer terror the whole time." He lived for a while on Molokai until he decided Hawaii was too dull and moved to a house on a golf course in Sequim, where he spent his final years.

A born showman, he enjoyed singing, particularly in barbershop ensembles, and often took his keyboard to perform for Alzheimer patients and other shut-ins.

Ten years ago he suffered a stroke, a prelude to the heart disease that took his life.

Dunham was preceded in death by his parents; his brother Bobby and daughter Molli Ann Dunham Klein. He is survived by his partner Jean Ernst of Sequim; first wife Mary Ann Dunham; son and daughter-in-law Michael and Evelyn Dunham; grandson and daughter-in-law Samuel and Chelsea Dunham; grandson Benjamin Dunham; great-granddaughter Lily Ryan Dunham and son-in-law Ron Klein, all of Anchorage, Alaska.

Private celebrations of his life will take place in Sequim and Anchorage at future dates.