OBITUARY

Anchorage Daily News
June 23, 2000

Photo courtesy of:

Jeff Schultz , Photog.
Anchorage, Alaska
Copyright ã 1997

Montana Creek resident DONALD STARK BOWERS JR., 52, died Monday, June 19, 2000, in an airplane crash 30 miles west of Mount McKinley.

A service for Mr. Bowers and the three National Parks Service employees who died in the airplane crash will be at 6 p.m. Sunday, June 25, 2000, at the Talkeetna Elementary School, with a private family service for Mr. Bowers at a later date.

Mr. Bowers was born April 1, 1948, in Fort Smith, Ark., to Donald Stark Bowers Sr. and Lois Ann Paddock Bowers. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1970 and held a masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He was a retired Air force colonel and received the Douglas MacArthur Medal.

Mr. Bowers was a C-130 Hercules pilot and worked at Hudson Air Service in the summers and as a substitute teacher for the Mat-Su Borough School District in the winters. He also published articles and books on flying in Alaska. In 1997 he received the Iditarod Sportsmanship Award.

Mr. Bowers was preceded in death by his mother, Lois Ann Paddock Bowers; maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Louis Paddock; and paternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Russell Bowers.

He is survived by his father and stepmother, Mr. and Mrs. Donald S. Bowers Sr. of Van Buren, Ark.; sisters and brothers-in-law, Ann Bowers Sweatman of Angel Fire, N.M., Carolyn Powell and Ken Hartley of Dallas, Texas, Maud Powell and Jim Ramsay of Malibu, Calif., and Annie Powell and Andrew Hendricks of Fort Smith, Ark.; brothers and sisters-in-law, David L. and Jane Bowers of Fort Smith, and John Russell and Debra Bowers of Dallas; aunts and uncles, Mrs. Ben Paddock of Fort Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Staton of Fort Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Bowers of Keokuk, Iowa, and Mr. amd Mrs. James Bowers of Lake Okiboji, Iowa; nieces, Victoria and Catherine Sweatman of Angel Fire, Emma and Rachel Hendricks and Rosalie Bowers of Fort Smith, Sarah and Allison Ramsay of Malibu; nephews, Grant Bowers, Andrew Hendricks and John R. Bowers, all of Fort Smith, Booth Ramsay of Malibu, and Mac and Kelso Hartley of Dallas; and many cousins and friends.

In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to the Iditarod Trail Committee in Wasilla.

Arrangements by Valley Funeral Home & Crematory of Wasilla.