- Date Of Birth: March 8, 1932
- Date Of Death: May 1, 2021
- State: Utah
James Edward Moore passed away peacefully at his home May 1, 2021, after battling Alzheimer’s in recent years. Jim was born in Erick, Oklahoma, on March 8, 1932, to parent W. Lee Moore and Irene Drace Moore. He was an inquisitive and precocious child, who at age 4, proceeded to ride his tricycle right down the center of Highway 66 to watch a painter friend work at a new location.
Between the ages of 10 and 11, Jim and his family moved from Erick to Pampa, Texas, and there he graduated from Pampa High School in the class of 1950. He was president of both his junior and senior classes. Having visited Colorado on a vacation, he decided that he loved the mountains and went to Colorado State University, which was the Colorado A&M, and achieved his B.S. degree in 1954 with a range management and forestry major. After graduation, Jim joined the U. S. Air Force and flew as a pilot for 3 years, leaving as a 1st Lieutenant in 1957. Later, while serving in the reserves, he was promoted to Captain.
Jim met Carolyn Currey at Austin Avenue Methodist Church while finishing his Air Force assignment in Waco, Texas. They married in November of 1957. They raised two children – a daughter Melanie Susan born in December of 1960 and a son Tate Connor born in January of 1963. Both were born in Cody, Wyoming. Jim loved his family, he attended all their activities and also served as PTA President of their elementary school.
After his military active duty was complete, he resumed his career with the U.S. Forest Service and assignments were in Durango, Colorado; Cody, Wyoming; Juneau, Alaska; Atlanta, Georgia; and Ogden, Utah. While in Cody, the Forest Service remembered that Jim could fly airplane’s, and this led to his combining his forestry career with flying Lead Plane over forest fires and directing the drops of the fire retardant from the air. From then on Jim’s career was forest fire related, serving in Alaska as Regional Air Operations Officer and retiring from Ogden’s Regional Office in 1985 as a multi-regional fire equipment specialist. He wrote several books for the Forest Service for training purposes and received 2 special recognition awards for developing nationally used training programs. After his first retirement, Jim continued working from 1985-1988 as an industrial trainer for Thiokol, Inc. and from 1988-1993 as an industrial trainer for Hercules Aerospace, getting to see 2 Cape Canaveral shuttle launches.
Jim and Carolyn enjoyed having a travel trailer for many years and hiked the outdoors in locations from Canada to Texas.
One of the best things about living in Utah to Jim and Carolyn was attending the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. After their first visit in 1987, they never missed a single year until COVID. Jim was a member of First United Methodist Church of Ogden and served at various times as an usher, Sunday school teacher, Chairperson of the Administrative Council, and Trustee.
Jim is survived by his wife Carolyn, daughter Melanie (Brent) DeHart, son Tate (Michelle) Moore, and grandchildren Sawyer and Darby DeHart, Nicole Moore and Dusty (Stephanie) Huff, plus 2 great grandchildren Reuben and Layla Goodfellow. He was preceded in death by his brother Lee and wife Pat, and his parents.
