John Douglas Hopper

John Douglas Hopper (5/12/1941 – 4/12/2025) passed away Saturday morning in Layton, UT from complications of a September 2021 stroke, surrounded by loving family members and caring staff from Utah Hospice service. John was born in Schenectady, NY to Olga Butler and Jack Hicks Hopper. He graduated from Shaker Heights High School (OH) in 1959 and then attended Brigham Young University as a U.S. Air Force ROTC cadet, graduating in 1963 with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry. Upon his graduation he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. He married Rita Jeanne Johnson on December 27,1960 in the Los Angeles, California LDS Temple, and they had eight children together. He was assigned to Patrick Air Force Base (PAFB), Cape Canaveral Space Center, where he spent several years analyzing and testing rocket fuel for the Saturn and Apollo programs at the PAFB Chemistry Laboratory. He resigned his commission as Captain in 1967 and was honorably discharged from the United States Air Force, entering the U.S. Civil Service at the PAFB Range Measurements Laboratory. The family lived in Satellite Beach and in Melbourne, FL, where John served in the bishopric of the Melbourne Ward and later as Clerk of the Orlando Stake. They moved to Kaysville, UT in 1971, and John worked as a Chemist at Hill Air Force Base. In 1975 the family briefly detoured back across the country to Alabama so John could attend Air Command and Staff College, simultaneously earning a Master’s degree in political science from Auburn University. Returning to Utah in 1976, John put his experience and education into practice for the U.S. government as a Chemist, Industrial Engineer, Job Enrichment Specialist, Statistical Analyst, and eventually (beginning in 1985) as a Logistics Management Specialist for the Air Force’s Materiel Management Directorate. In 1991, he accepted assignment to the Logistics Support Group in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, returning to Utah in 1993. John retired from the Civil Service in 1995, after 32 years of service to the United States government. In 2011 he and Jeanne moved to Atlanta, GA, where John was called as the bishop of the Atlanta Ward. In 2016 they moved back to St. George, UT, and in 2022 they moved to Layton, UT to be closer to family.

John loved to camp, whittle functional and artistic objects out of wood, collect stamps and coins, take photographs, watch Star Trek, and play chess. He loved the outdoors and went on many hikes and camping trips with the Boy Scouts. It seemed that John’s energy was boundless, he would wake in the early hours of the morning to go to work, so that he could be home in the early afternoon to tend his large garden at the Kaysville home (lovingly called Plumcreek, after the wild plum trees that grow along the banks of the irrigation stream). His physical exertions also extended to running (up to and including marathon distances) and biking to and from work. He was an avid puzzler, whether of the jigsaw, word, or number variety. He loved Shakespeare and was a frequent visitor to the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, where he also designed and sold suspenders imprinted with the Bard’s image and name. John was best known by his children and grandchildren as the “knower of things,” and had quite a reputation for long-form exposition on almost any topic. When he played Trivial Pursuit, it was the family rule that when John reached the end of the game, he had to answer all the questions on a card in order to win—and he still rarely lost. He channeled his entrepreneurial urges for many years into the Hopper Tax Service and later into a cleaning business called Make it So. John loved his country and its Constitutional foundations and taught the Citizenship in the Nation merit badge to his sons and grandsons and a host of other future Eagle Scouts. Later in life he took up watercolor painting and became quite accomplished. John was an enthusiastic singer, an appreciator of fine music, and a lifetime member of his ward choirs.

John was preceded in death by both parents, his siblings June (Scott) Hymas, Susan (George) Doty, Robert (Kay) Hopper, and Richard (Cristina) Hopper, his daughter Holly Hopper, his grandson Wesley Solomon Beadle, his son-in-law Michael Dale Beadle, and his great granddaughter Jordynne Nichole Lee. He is survived by his spouse Rita Jeanne Hopper, his siblings David (Peggy) Hopper, and Marjory (Neal) Zeiger, and his children Marilee (Greg) Mason, Douglas Hopper, Cindy (Jamie) Hopper-Henderson, Michael (Vicky) Hopper, David (Jennifer) Hopper, Lorinda (Michael) LeFevre, Carol Hopper (James Holmes), and Bonnie (Russell) Jack, as well as 26 grandchildren and 27 great grandchildren.

A closed-casket family and friends visitation will be held Friday, April 18th from 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. at the chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints located at 1085 N 50 E, Kaysville, Utah. Funeral services will begin at 2:00 p.m. in the same location. Interment will be at 3:15 p.m. at the Lindquist Cemetery at 1867 N Fairfield Road, Layton, Utah.

The funeral service will be live-streamed and may be viewed by scrolling to the bottom of John Douglas’ obituary page at www.lindquistmortuary.com.

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