Sept. 18, 1943 — April 16, 2018
Jim was born Sept. 18, 1943 in Hamlet, North Carolina, to parents James W. and Vivienne Lake Booher. He lived in Bridge, Oregon; Roseburg, Oregon; Corvallis, Oregon; Hoquiam, Washington; Aberdeen, Washington; Silverton, Oregon; Kalama, Washington; Longview, Washington; Lake Havasu City, Arizona; and Hurricane, Utah.
He is survived by his beloved wife Beth; two daughters, Jerilyn K. Ingalls of Longview, Washington, and Jennifer A. Booher of Kelso, Washington; five grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren; mother, Vivienne L. Booher and sister, Jill L. Spangler of Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
Jim attended Bridge Grade School, Bridge, Oregon; Riverside Elementary School, Roseburg, Oregon; Joseph Lane Junior High School, Roseburg, Oregon; and graduated from Roseburg High School in 1961 as a member of the National Honor Society.
He graduated from Oregon State University in 1966 with two bachelor of science degrees: one in forest engineering and one in forest management. He received the Hill Family Foundation Scholarship Award, the Crown Zellerbach Scholarship, the Max D. Tucker Scholarship Award and the Paul Dunn Outstanding Senior Award at OSU. He graduated first in his class and was a member of the Phi Kappa Phi all-school honorary fraternity and Xi Sigma Pi forestry honorary fraternity.
Jim worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Cave Junction, Oregon, and the Bureau of Land Management in Roseburg, Oregon, during summers while attending OSU. He was a Lab Instructor at OSU for tree and shrub identification, forest engineering and log scaling/timber cruising during his last two academic years.
Upon graduation in 1966, he began his career with Weyerhaeuser Company at Aberdeen, Washington, as a field engineering lead man, transferred to Longview in 1968 as assistant logging contract supervisor, transferred to Molalla, Oregon, in 1970 as district engineer-construction foreman and returned to longview in 1972 serving as Camp Kalama Maintenance Foreman and in a number of engineering field and supervisory capacities from 1976 until his retirement in June 1999.
Jim’s hobbies include digital photography and computer photo manipulation, hiking, reading historical books and novels, putting together jigsaw puzzles and solving crossword puzzles.
He loved natural and man-made beauty in all its diverse forms.
Jim married his loved wife Beth in 2016 and she has been a much-loved and comforting companion during the last years of his life.
Memorial service
- A memorial service will be held, Friday, April 27, at 1 p.m. at Spilsbury Mortuary, 110 S. Bluff Street, St. George.
- A webcast of the service will be available. Go to webcast.funeralrecording.com, Event: 18465, Password: 918JWB. This webcast will be available on that site for up to 90 days.
Arrangements have been entrusted to the care of Spilsbury Mortuary, 435-673-2454.
For condolences, full obituary and funeral listings please visit Spilsbury Mortuary online.