JOHN STODDARD ZENTNER

 1914 - 2009

John Stoddard Zentner (Bunny) was born to Francis Henry Zentner and Irene Emily Baggs in Stevensville, Montana, September 7, 1914. He was the second of three boys.

 John passed away in his home at Holladay Park Plaza, Portland, Oregon, March 22, 2009.

 He was preceded in death by his parents and his older brother, Ralph. His brother, William, of Eugene, survives.

 He and Lola May Purvis met at a summer dance at the Camp Curry pavillion in Yosemite. They married Dec. 30, 1938, and celebrated their 70th anniversary in 2008. Besides Lola, whom he called Suse, he is survived by son John Zentner (Cindy) of Mercer, PA; daughter Sarah Friedel (Roger) of Portland, daughter Christine Wilson of Beaverton and six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

 John and Lola established homes in Delano, CA; Bakersfield, CA; Carlsbad, NM; Wichita, KS; Grand Junction, CO; Denver, CO; Fresno, CA; and Belmont, CA. They traveled far and wide, to Russia, China, and Israel. John never met a stranger. He maintained lifelong correspondences with folks from all over the world.

 John's childhood was spent in Waterville, WA, which he considered his home town. He and Lola often visited Waterville during summers. He kept up a mail subscription to the Waterville newspaper, which also printed occasional contributions by him.

 In Waterville, John learned to play the piano, taught by Beulah Brown, who pounded out the musical scores to the silent films shown at the Nifty Theater. On the piano, the accordion, and the Hammond B-3, John played all levels, all genres, from Sinding's fabulous Rustle of Spring to Nola, Ragtime Cowboy Joe,   and Hector the Garbage Collector. He played gigs in Acapulco with legendary jazz saxophonist Frank Trumbauer.

 Perhaps the greatest of John's lifelong passions, FLYING, took root in Waterville in 1920. A small plane, a Curtis, landed in a field. The pilot offered rides for $2. Six-year-old John hung around all day watching takeoffs and landings. At last, the pilot invited John to sit on another guy's lap and fly for free. John's pilot's license, still in his wallet, is one of only two ever issued in the U.S. which states "All Ratings Authorized."

 Merced was the site of John's high school years. From Merced, he hitchhiked to Corvallis to enroll at Oregon State, where he became a Lambda Chi Alpha and began engineering studies. It was the Depression. He "hashed" in the ZTA sorority house and paid his Lambda Chi rent with turkeys he won running cross country. The most money he ever had at one time was $6. In his sophomore year he found himself plumb broke, and for the first and last time in his life, he quit. But he had become a die-hard Beaver. One of his joys was great-granddaughter Jessica's attending OSU. The two of them shared Beaver sports across the miles. She hung his old OSU pennant in her dorm room.

 John's career had three distinct phases. Shell Oil Company (learning to fly and maintain aircraft when he wasn't at work). Then, WW II and the Army Air Force, where as a 1st lieutenant he trained bombardiers and flew supply missions across the Burma-China hump and the FAA.  

 John joined the CAA and subsequent FAA in 1947 as an Flight Standards Operations Inspector and retired as the manager of the Oakland FSDO in 1977.