LaVerne BeBeau, long a
devoted member of the Chief
Noonday Chapter, passed away
Wednesday evening, June 7th,
2006, after a long battle
with pancreatic cancer.
He was 70.
He joined
the North Country Trail
Association and the Chief
Noonday Chapter in September
1998.
LaVerne and
his wife Joan are pictured
at
a Spring Wildflower Hike a
few years ago. |
Larry
Hawkins, Chapter president,
comments:
"LaVerne never held an
elected position within the
Chapter. He was just one of
those people who were always
there when you needed help.
"He
was a Trail builder and
Trail adopter (he was the
first adopter for Jerry
Pattok's section).
"An
historian by profession, he
really started our
interpretive program. He was
a self trained naturalist.
"He was
fascinating to hike with and
share the natural beauty
along the Trail. He was an
environmentalist in his own
soft-spoken way.
"He
was a wonderful public
relations person who loved
to share the Trail with
others, always recruiting
new people (myself included)
to share nature along the
NCT. He worked the NCT here
in Barry County, and when he
was at his beloved cabin in
Wisconsin, he worked on the
trail in the Chequamegon
National Forest near his
birthplace in Shanagolden,
Wisconsin."
LaVerne and
his granddaughter Michelle
visited
the Chief Noonday Road kiosk
on a hike in December 2000. |
LaVerne
contributed to this Web site
from his expertise in
historical research.
See the
Local
History page.
LaVerne was born May 11,
1936, in Shanagolden,
Ashland County, Wisconsin.
He
grew up on the family dairy
farm in Wisconsin and when
he was around 16 moved with
his family to the prairies
of Saskatchewan where he
completed high school.
During the summer he worked
with his maternal uncles
helping build an oil
pipeline in the Canadian
Rockies.
After
graduation LaVerne joined
the US Marine Corps and was
a Marine when he met Joan
Wilson, whom he married in
1957 in Alabama.
He
graduated from the
University of Alabama in
1962 with a BA degree in
education. He
and Joan moved that
summer with their
two children, René and
Rochelle, to Hastings,
Michigan, for his first
teaching job. In 1965 their
third child Scott was born.
LaVerne was
front row center at Trail
Day 2001 at Kimball Pines,
flanked by Charles
Krammin and Annette Chapman
(Parks & Recreation
Director, Calhoun County
Road Commission).
Behind them (l-r): Verle
Krammin, Lynn
Waldron, Steve Hicks,
John Rudnicki, Dennis Randolph
(Managing Director of the Calhoun
County Road
Commission and of Calhoun
County Community Development), Tom Funke, Julie Jackson, Bill Powaser,
and Dave Newman. |
In
1967-68 LaVerne was granted
a sabbatical leave from his
teaching position. He had
been awarded a fully-funded
Federal grant for a year of
study at the University of
Kansas in Lawrence,
graduating with a Masters
degree in Renaissance
Reformation. He returned to
the Hastings area school
system and remained in the
field of education until he
retired in 1991. LaVerne
loved teaching and the many
wonderful students who took
his class.
In
1970 LaVerne and Joan
returned to the family farm
in Shanagolden, Wisconsin,
and began restoring the
primitive log cabin where he
had been born and which had
been built in 1935-36. They
spent almost every summer
after 1970 enjoying their
primitive life in the log
cabin on the Chippewa River.
LaVerne enjoyed hunting,
traveling, camping and
canoeing.
Among
the large family surviving
LaVerne are his beloved
wife, Joan, their three
children, and three
granddaughters, as well as a
number of siblings and their
spouses, and numerous nieces
and nephews. LaVerne
was preceded in death by his
parents and his eldest
brother.
The
funeral Mass of Christian
Burial was celebrated at St.
Rose of Lima Church in
Hastings on Monday, June 12,
2006. Burial was in
Mt. Calvary Cemetery,
Hastings.
------------
This
page incorporates information supplied by the Girrbach
Funeral Home in Hastings.
See their
Web site for a more
detailed obituary.
|
