| “Amazing Grace” |
May the Light of the Candle
Guide our Fallen Warriors
to their Final Resting Place,
and Bring Peace to All of Us.
IN MEMORY OF THE
YAMATO WARRIORS
WHO ARE NO LONGER WITH US.
Harry Tabata, Ret Major, USAF
CLASS OF 1959
Graduate of Narimasu.
Complications of Diabetis, July 8, 1999.
Susan Rowe Ensign
CLASS OF 1960.
Vehicle Accident April 28, 1985
Pat G. Porter
CLASS OF 1960.
Deceased while attending Nursing School 1962
Stephaine Barton
CLASS OF 1960.
MENINGITIS, Early 60's
James Dawson
CLASS OF 1960.
Cancer, Late 60's
Clarence (Butch) Burkett
CLASS OF 1961.
Name: Clarence Poe Jr Burkett
Birth Date: 30 Nov 1942
Home State: Wyoming
Home City: Portsmouth
Casualty Country: United States and Territory
Casualty Category: Non-battle Dead
Casualty Status: Non-hostile Dead: Died Out-right (current), No Previous Report
(previous)
Casualty Date: 16 May 1973
Cause of Death: Injuries Sustained In A Vehicle Accident (vehicle Major Cause)
Vehicle: Rotary Wing Aircraft (type); Government (owner)
Position in Vehicle : Co-pilot
Report Date: 17 May 1973
Component: Other
Officer Branch: Aviation
CommSrc: Other
PostProm: No
Personnel Catagory: Active Duty Army
Military Class: Warrant Officers
Lowell R."Bud"Short
CLASS OF 1961.
Deceased August 17,2000 after a fight with cancer.
Phil Loofbourrow
CLASS OF 1961.
Deceased December 31, 1997
Jacqueline Ann Wolfe
CLASS OF 1961.
Deceased July 1993 from complications after a routine surgery
Neil F. Alterman
CLASS OF 1962
Neil suddenly passed away on February 24th 2006 at the University
of Maryland Medical Center. . He died of complications that occurred after surgery.
Beloved husband of Ellen K. Alterman; devoted father of Aviva Baker, Sandra
M., Shana M., Priya M. and Sonia M. Alterman; brother of Cheryl Kaplan and Stephen
Alterman. He is also survived by two grandchildren Abigail and Zachary Baker.
He was only 62 years old. Neil often spoke of his love for his Alumni Association
and fondly remembered his high school years on Japan. Neil F. Alterman was
Born in New York on Jun. 23, 1944 and resided in Fairfax Station, VA.
Frank Tennyson
CLASS OF 1962
Killed in an Automobile Accident in late 1962 or early 1963 in California
Joe Wilson
CLASS OF 1962.
Killed in Thailand, January 1969
Kathy Cutter
CLASS OF 1962.
Deceased 1984, Melonoma
Carl E. Hardy
CLASS OF 1962.
Deceased January 21, 2004 complications of
liver cancer. Carl had been fighting cancer for nearly three years.
Carl will be buried in Alabama according to his wishes
Dennis "Mike" Kelly
CLASS OF 1962.
Deceased December 10, 1994, LTC, Army, Retired
Walter Hershall "Hersh" Bagley, Jr
CLASS OF 1962.
Deceased July 1980 due to complications from diabetes at Deek Park, WA
Sandy Correll
CLASS OF 1962.
Deceased early 90s liver cancer.
Muriel M. Haug
CLASS OF 1962
Deceased June 16, 1999, Lung Cancer.
Don Jensen
CLASS OF 1962
Retired AF Brigadier General, Deceased 5 November 1999.
Donald J. Becker
CLASS OF 1962
was killed in 1969 in a motorcycle accident in Seattle.
Peter Bettinger
CLASS OF 1963.
Died November 26, 1996 in Austin, Texas of MS
Bill Bieler
CLASS OF 1963.
Motorcycle accident 1969 0r 1970, in Arizona.
Jim Herring
CLASS OF 1963.
Died May 24, 2004
Jim Koprock
CLASS OF 1963.
Leukemia, 1963
Jeannie Loofburrow
CLASS OF 1963.
Died August 20, 2002, after a long battle with cancer
Larry A. Stephens
CLASS OF 1963.
Killed in Vietnam, January 1969
Micheal B. Smith
CLASS OF 1963.
Killed in Vietnam, July 1967
Gloria Lynch Uchida
CLASS OF 1963.
Gloria Lynch Uchida passed away in the early hours of Wednesday,
March 2, 2005. Those of us in the Class Of ‘63 for whom Gloria was our
Miss Yamato know very well what a wonderful person she was, but as Gloria spent
all of her high school years there she also touched the lives of many others
with her sweet and generous spirit. Our hearts go out to her mother, Setsuko
Lynch, to her husband, Randy Uchida, to her son, Andrew, and to the rest of
her family, both here and in Japan.
Link
to Memorial Page
John Stowe
CLASS OF 1964.
Deceased
Stephen Carbonaro
CLASS OF 1964.
Illness, May 1988.
Warren Miles
CLASS OF 1964.
Warren had a massive heart attack. He was married with 2 daughters
and a son. He was 52
when he died in 1998.
Dr. Lee Porter, Ph. D.
CLASS OF 1965
who took her own life. Lee had a PhD in Geology and Paleontology and taught at Washington State University and Arizona State. Lee's research projects took her to the wilds of the Alaskan Yukon in search of the sabre tooth tiger (she has exhibits at the Smithsonian in her name) and to Russia, Tajikistan and Afganistan. She learned the languages, won over huge resistance from the authorities, and travelled mostly alone in this part of the world.
On the acknowledgement page of "The Mammoth Hunters," the author Jean Auel ("Clan of the Cave Bear") writes "I am grateful to Dr. Lee Porter of Washington State University, and to whatever fates put her, with her American accent, in our hotel in Kiev. She was there studying fossil mammoth bones,
and meeting with the very person we had been desperately trying to see. She cut through all the red tape, and arranged the meeting".
Karen Peterson
CLASS OF 1965 (Attended YHS 62-63)
Karen attended Yamato as a freshman in 62-63, graduated from the University of Hawaii in 1971, and spent the rest of her life in Ogden, Utah as a homemaker and friend to the dispossessed, the disenfranchised and the just downright unlucky. She died of a heart attack on July 5th, 2003.
Jim Stressman
CLASS OF 1965.
Deceased Auto accident, August 8th 1998, in Flagstaff, AZ, USA Survived by His two children Dawn Stressman and Amber Stressman. He was a boilermaker at the time and traveled for work. He had just been working in Farmington, New Mexico and was on his way back home. He was coming through Flagstaff to get back to Phoenix and it was sprinkling. He lost control of his vehicle and crashed.
Gary Speight
CLASS OF 1965.
Deceased, August, 2000.
Marshall W. (Bill) “Snoopy” Purcell
CLASS OF 1965.
Deceased Auto accident, December, 1991.
Michael Kossakoski
CLASS OF 1966
Deceased March 10, 1997 due to complications of diabetes.
Kurt Smith
CLASS OF 1966
Passed away in Kaneoe, Hawaii on January 27, 2005 from a heart attack following complications from diabetes. He is survived by his loving wife of 32 years, Debroah Maclean Smith, also a Yamato Alumni, Class of 67. Kurt is loved and missed by his best friends, Greg, Steve and Mike.
PAUL F. COTTINGHAM, Jr.
CLASS OF 1967
Deceased December 23,1965, Dayton, Ohio.
RONALD EIJI FURUKAWA
CLASS OF 1967
Ronald Eiji Furukawa was born April 4, 1949 in Tokyo, Japan. He lived and practiced optometry in Fairfield for 25 years. He passed away on Friday, Sept. 26, 2003. Ron was a graduate and assistant clinical professor of the U.C. Berkeley School of Optometry. He was an accomplished photographer, cook and scuba diver. He is loved and will be missed by his children, Erin and Eric Furukawa; his mother, Eiko Ogawa Furukawa; his sister, brother-in-law and niece, Kris, Dave and Keani DiBerardino; and Sheila Flynn Furukawa, his wife of 24 years
KEN OGIHARA
CLASS OF 1967
Ken passed away on 12-10-2002 in Honolulu Hawaii at the Queen's Hospital. He became ill in late September 2002 and was diagnosed with inoperable cancer of the gall bladder and liver. He is survived by his wife Takako and his three children, Eric, Traci and Derek, his father Kiyoshi all of Kauai; and his sister Kiyomi of Fresno CA.
Donnie Benton
CLASS OF 1968
Deceased during a military mission on April 18, 1985 off the coast of Honduras and Nicaragua.
Robert Schultz
CLASS OF 1969
Deceased due to complications of an illness in the early 1990s.
James (Jim) Yuchnitz
CLASS OF 1969
Deceased February 20, 1993 due to complications of cancer.
Tom Boyan
CLASS OF 1970
Deceased 1995 following an Illness.
Keiko Barley
CLASS OF 1970
Deceased February,2001
Chris Corbin
CLASS OF 1970 (Rotated out in his Senior year)
Deceased August 16, 2003 Respitory liver and kidney failure precipitated by Hepatitis C (contracted in the Orient) and alcohol.
Clayton Ono
CLASS OF 1970
Clayton passed away after a long battle with diabetes. After over 10 years on dialysis, he had a kidney transplant in Nov. of 2002. But last August, it failed and since then, he was constantly in and out of the hospital due to fevers and infections. He passed away peacefully on December 14, 2003. He was on dialysis and was legally blind but worked until pretty close to when he got his transplant.
Jesse Hankins
CLASS OF 1971.
Deceased October 1999, after a battle with cancer in San Jose, California
Dave Mason
CLASS OF 1971.
Murdered, April 19, 1987 California
Robert (Bob) Gant
CLASS OF 1972.
Deceased December 21, 1997, after a long battle with cancer in Houston, Texas
Larry Grant
CLASS OF 1972.
Deceased 22 September 1988 of a heart attack while living in Pennsylvania
Margaret "Maggie" Toda
CLASS OF 1972.
On March 7, 2007, Maggie suffered a sudden brain hemorrhage from an aneurism. Maggie was driving when she lost consciousness and crashed into a telephone pole on Yokota AFB (where she worked). She was rushed to the hospital on the grounds of Tachikawa AFB, where she was put on life support in intensive care. Maggie was in a coma since the incident, and lost her fight on March 25, 2008.
John J.Yoshida
CLASS OF 1973.
Illness, September 1991
Rick Taylor
CLASS OF 1973.
Died of a massive heart attack, March 7, 2002
Robert R. Schafer
Faculty/Teacher
Deceased January 26, 1998 peacefully at his home in Middleton, WI at the age of 75.
Stanley Arlton
Faculty/Teacher
Stanley Arlton, 81, of Fergus Falls, MN, died Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2007, at MeritCare Hospital in Fargo.
He was born on May 6, 1925, in Mitchell, S.D., to Alexander and Clara (Stensgaard) Arlton. He attended Mitchell Public Schools and graduated "Most likely to succeed" in his high school class. He studied at several colleges including Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell and Pacific Lutheran College in Tacoma, Wash.
He received his undergraduate degree from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., and his master’s degree in math from Western Connecticut State University. He had near majors in physics and German.
In 1943 he was inducted into the U.S. Army as a high-speed radio operator and traveled from San Francisco on an unescorted transport ship to Calcutta, India. During a drive on the famous Burma Road to Kunming, China, he was injured and hospitalized. After the atomic bombing of Japan, his unit was returned to the United States in April 1946. To celebrate his return, he embarked on a 5,500-mile bike trip from Tacoma, Wash., through Utah, South Dakota, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maine, Quebec, Michigan and back to Sioux Falls.
After the war, in 1949, Stan joined a work-study project in Germany and helped convert a former Nazi slave-labor camp into a summer youth camp. Being an independent person, he got on his bicycle again and toured Switzerland and England.
Stan studied music and composed pieces, one of them being a Christmas Cantata: The Birth of Jesus. He sang in the University of Washington opera "Dido et Aeneas" and directed many choirs during his lifetime. He had a great interest in mathematics and designed and produced a novel circular slide rule that was flown on the first Apollo moon mission as a computer backup.
He always enjoyed solving complex math problems. His first teaching position was at Tripp High School in Tripp, S.D., where he taught math, physics, chemistry and English while also serving one year as the school principal. He directed both church and community choirs. Stan loved teaching and his students.
He is remembered by many of his former students for his highly successful choral programs and sponsored student trips to Chicago museums, Mexico, the Badlands in South Dakota, cave explorations and trips to many concerts. His last teaching assignment was at Hillcrest Academy where he taught mainly physics and computer science. Here again he enjoyed being assistant director for the community choir.
Stan loved travel and sought an overseas teaching assignment that resulted in four years of teaching at the Yamato High School (Yamato Air Force Base) in Tokyo, Japan. His students excelled in math competitions and he and they climbed Mount Fujiyama. He took his young sons on trips to Mexico, Guatemala, Austria, Switzerland, Germany and France so they could learn more about the world.
He made several trips to Norway to learn more of his ancestral heritage, the last being to Gudbrandsdal, central Norway, in 2005 where he visited the home built in the 1600's in which his mother was raised. He was surprised by a celebration for him by relatives who still occupy the house.
After Stan retired from teaching, he continued to be very active in the things he loved in Fergus Falls, including photo and book clubs and adult Sunday School. He spent many hours writing and studying in the seminary. He was known for his many witty poems. He could write poems about everything and anybody. He was a selfless person and always gave to those around him in whatever way his talents could contribute.
He is survived by two sons, David and Paul Arlton of West Lafayette, Ind.; a brother, Roland of Lennox, S.D. and nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents and two brothers, Paul and Dean Arlton.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Stanley Arlton Hillcrest Academy
Fund.
Allan Peterson
Faculty/Principal (1961-1963)
Deceased September 5, 2001 after a long battle with cancer.
Walter E. "Bud" Peik
Faculty
Peik Walter E. (Bud), Born January 12, 1929, in Sumter Township, Minnesota. Died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart condition on February 8, 2004, at his home in Hutchinson, Minnesota. Most of his adult life was spent as a teacher/principal in the Department of Defense Dependents Schools in Southeast Asia. Walter grew up on a farm near Brownton, Minnesota. He graduated in 1947 as valedictorian of his Brownton class. He attended Hamline University and completed his degree in Education at St. Cloud University. He received a Masters Degree in Library Science at the University of Minnesota in 1965. He served in the U. S. Air Force during the Korean War and continued in the Air Force Reserves until 1963. Walter was a teacher in Slayton, Silver Lake, and Mahtomedi, Minnesota and St. Cloud University before his overseas career began. He returned in June 1993 to Hutchinson, Minnesota where he was active with the McLeod County Historical Society and Regional Arts Council. He was also active in DODDS retirement group and the Kerlan collection at the U of M Library. Walter was preceded in death by his parents, Erwin and Mildred Peik. He is survived by his sisters, Doris Mielke Adams (John), Vernamaree "Puz" Nelson (Bill); nephews and nieces, John (Wendy) Mielke, Deborah (Ben Jackson) Mielke, Dan Mielke, Leah Nelson Rogers (Geoff), Sarah Nelson Bower (Larry); ten grand nephews and nieces, a great grand nephew and niece, and many family and friends.
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