CLARENCE JOSEPH TIBADO

CLARENCE JOSEPH
TIBADO, 94

WINTER HAVEN - Clarence Joseph Tibado, 94, passed away 12/16/2014.
He was born in Yankton, South Dakota, in 1920. A few years later his family moved to Florida, where he spent most of his boyhood years in Lake Wales. In his early twenties, with the nation at war, Tibado joined the crew of the heavy cruiser U.S.S. Pensacola CA24, for what was to turn out to be four years of dramatic campaigning in the Pacific. Tibado was one of the handful who served on the much decorated ship, throughout the long conflict. He took part in the thirteen bronze star battles, as well as countless other engagements, and was wounded during the battle of Iwo Jima.
Receiving an honorable discharge from the Navy late in 1945, as a Radarman 3rd Class, Tibado spent most of the next four years in Hawaii, painting as well as working as art editor for the Honolulu Star Bulletin newspaper. He sold virtually every painting he produced, and had a one man show that was so successful traffic was tied up for miles around the exhibition. In 1957 he donated a series of his war pictures he painted while serving on board the Pensacola, to the Smithsonian museum.
On the deaths of his parents, the family corporation was broken up among Tibado and his six sisters and brothers. He used his share to travel to California and engage in a near decade-long painting trek through the High Sierras.
Clarence J. Tibado is survived by Lorraine Tibado Duncan and Joan Tibado Arndt.