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In Memory

Keith Whitaker - Class of 1948

Earl Keith Whitaker, 41, a native and resident of Montpelier for 31 years, and since 1950 of Nampa, Idaho, died July 26, 1970 at about 5 AM in the Brookes Military Hospital, San Antonio, Texas, of complications from extensive bodily burns suffered July 7 when the train on which he was working as a brakeman near Ontario, Oregon, collided with a gas truck.  A son of Secyl and Hortense Groo Whitaker, he was born November 6, 1928. He attended schools in Montpelier, graduating from Montpelier High School in 1948, and one year at ISU, Pocatello. He served two years in Austria with an occupational group of the U.S. Armed Forces. Mr Whitaker was a member of the LDS church and while in Montpelier was a Boy Scout leader. An ardent outdoorsman, he loved fishing and hunting. Mr Whitaker and Joyce LuDean Hooker, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Myrl Hooker of Montpelier, were married June 19, 1953 in the LDS Temple, Logan. He has been employed for the Union Pacific Railroad for a number of years. Besides his widow, he Is survived by four children, Elizabeth Ann, 16, Bradford Keith, 12, Craig Myrl, 5, and Cherie Darlene, 2; parents, Mr. and Mrs. S. F. Whitaker of Montpelier; two sisters and one brother. Mrs. Merrill (Shirley) Balls of Soda Springs, Mrs. S. E. (Joyce) Chatterton of Pocatello, and Mark D. Whitaker of Montpelier. Funeral services with military rites were at 1 p m today (Thursday) in the Nampa LDS Fourth Ward Chapel. He was buried in the Montpelier City Cemetery.