Peter Thompson

1939 - 2021

Peter Thompson
October 8, 1939 - January 12, 2021
Bend, Oregon - When I think of my dad the TV show Mad Men comes to mind. I remember vividly the image of him and his salesman buddies with a cocktail in one hand, a cigarette in the other and that gleam in their eye. They possessed a certain swagger. A confidence that said, "Come on world, bring it on."
He had that until the end.
Peter "Pete" Thompson passed on the morning of January 12, 2021. He went peacefully surrounded by his family at his home in Bend, Oregon.
Pete was born and raised in Salt Lake City. It was there he met my mother Joyce, his loving wife of sixty-two years. It was also in Salt Lake where my dad met the gentlemen that would be the foundation of his career and his friends for life.
Pete went to work at a check printing company called Rocky Mountain Bank Note. During his early years at Rocky he was also enlisted in the Army National Guard. He was called up for active duty during the Cuban Missile Crisis to Fort Hood, Texas. After a year he returned to his job in Salt Lake City where he and my mother started a family. In 1963 I was fortunate enough to become a member of that family.
When I was six months old my dad was transferred to Boise, Idaho to start a check printing plant. It was here in Boise that my parents added the other member to our family, my younger brother Alan. As my father built the new shop from the ground up, he also built what we considered an extended family. Dad's employees and business acquaintances became lifelong friends.
In the early eighties some of the principals of Rocky Mountain Bank Note decided to form their own company. They invited my father to be a part of the new endeavor, IC Group. Dad started his own shop in Boise called IC Print. Every year my dad would participate in IC Groups annual sales meeting in Park City, Utah. The sales meetings always included a best ball golf tournament. The scrambles were to be the most memorable in dad's sixty year printing career.
Later in life my parents took up traveling in an RV. With friends and family they set out on adventures far and wide. These escapades were talked about frequently and fondly until my dad's final days.
Officially Pete is survived by my mother Joyce Thompson, his granddaughter Piper Sarah Fox, and me, Tedd Thompson. More importantly Pete survives in all of you who knew him. It is in all of us his memory lives on. On more than one occasion I received a call of condolence reassuring me what a great friend my father was. These calls, more often than not, were accompanied with the statement, "I'll never forget his laugh."
I know that my dad was sad that he didn't get to say goodbye to everyone he loved. I also know that if Dad is reading this right now he is surrounded by those friends with that gleam in their eye…that certain swagger.
And he is smiling.