John William Allen

John William Allen died in Boise, Idaho on June 20, 2025, at age 83, after a long struggle with Parkinson's Disease. He was born in 1941 in Salem Oregon and grew up there. He received a BS degree from Willamette University in 1963 and a PhD in astronomy from Harvard University in 1973. As a professor at Boise State University for 30 years, he taught physics and astronomy, sharing his excitement about science with his students.
While in graduate school John met Edwina Simpson, who was a new research assistant where John was studying. They married in 1968 and moved to Boise in 1971. Their 56 years together are reflected in the words of Walt Whitman: "Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?" Their many shared interests included travel, urban and wilderness hiking, classical music, concerts, theatre, and movies. They always ate dinner together. Their major projects included adding a second story to their first house, with John doing all the electrical work and plumbing. At their second house, with its steep yard, they did extensive native plant landscaping and added many rock walls, paths, and cinder block steps. They enjoyed their distant views of the Owyhee mountains and, in the yard, observing birds and wildlife.
Early in life John discovered a love for the outdoors. He especially enjoyed backpacking in the high, snowy mountains of the Cascades. Reflecting the words of John Muir, John felt inspired to "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings." Recording the beauty of these trips, he became an avid photographer. John and Edwina enjoyed many years of hiking the backcountry trails in Idaho.
When asked what he most liked to do, John enthusiastically responded "travel"! John and Edwina travelled, most often car camping, in all fifty US states. The desert southwest was a favorite region, with its red rock vistas and cactus-strewn desert landscapes. John's first European trip (in his early graduate student years) was a two-month solo adventure, with a Euro Pass, a pack, and a few maps. He learned that he really liked figuring out public transit in new places, often where he did not speak the language. John just blossomed traveling in foreign countries. With so many new scenes to capture, photography was a joy. John and Edwina had many wonderful trips to Europe, usually staying at small local hotels in the heart of the "old city" where they could explore the ancient alleyways and squares. They walked many happy hours each day, seeing the magnificent cityscapes of cathedrals, castles and historic architecture, and everywhere climbing the city walls, towers, church domes and hills to get inspiring views of the city.
John enjoyed annual visits to the Oregon coast with his family as a child and later continued the tradition with his brother Paul and his wife Joan.
John actively supported environmental causes. In 2019 he received the national Sierra Club's Special Services Award, "given in recognition of a strong and consistent commitment to conservation or the Club over an extended period of time". As treasurer for the Idaho Sierra Club, John provided essential administrative support. Also noted was John's many decades of work quietly helping with the endless details of running a volunteer organization. His work on implementing a computer mapping system to document volunteer surveys of road features in Idaho's Owyhee desert region was an important contribution to securing passage of legislation that designated Wilderness in the Owyhees. He was a core member of the team that developed a slide program that advocated for Wilderness designation for many of Idaho's wild lands. He worked to restore healthy populations of salmon and steelhead to Idaho rivers. John was very concerned about climate change. He volunteered with the Idaho Sierra Club's programs to promote electric vehicles and rooftop solar and acquired both for his own use.
A summary of John's life would be incomplete without mentioning puffins. As a kid he saw puffins on the Oregon Coast. Somehow, they found a place in his heart. John's home was well populated with puffin pictures. Seeing puffins was the impetus for many trips, including to Machias Seal Island off the coast of Maine, Alaska, Skomer Island in Wales, Newfoundland, and Norway.
John is survived by his wife Edwina and brother Paul (Joan) Allen of Keiser, Oregon. He was dearly loved by Edwina's sisters Karen Simpson of West Springfield, Massachusetts, Ellen Simpson of San Francisco, California, and Martha Simpson of East Boothbay, Maine; sister-in- law Kate Donoghue of Westboro, Massachusetts; and a special niece, Josselyn Simpson, of New York City, New York. His brother-in-law brother Kimball died in 2021. He had numerous nieces and nephews-in-law.
To honor John's memory, donations to Sierra Club Idaho Chapter are suggested.