Harold Winston Koonce
Marriages
Alice May Randall - June 22, 1941
Burial Details
Obituaries
Eagle Valley Enterprise - January 9, 2003
Harold W. KOONCE, 86, a long time Eagle resident, passed away on Jan. 5 at Larchwood Inns in Grand Junction. A memorial mass will be held on Saturday, Jan. 11, at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Eagle, at 2 p.m.
Survivors include his wife, Alice of Grand Junction; sons Chris KOONCE of Sheridan, Wyo., and Steve KOONCE of Boulder; daughters Susan KOONCE of Durango and Ann BALDWIN of Grand Junction; and a sister, Marguerite SPANO of Westminster.
He is also survived by 16 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren.
Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice and Palliative Care of Western Colorado, P.O. Box 60307, Grand Junction, Colo. 81506.
Eagle Valley Enterprise - January 10, 2003
SERVICES SATURDAY FOR HAROLD KOONCE, 86
Harold W. KOONCE, 86, a long-time Eagle resident, died Sunday at Larchwood Inns in Grand Junction.
Survivors include: his wife, Lice, of Grand Junction; sons Chris KOONCE of Sheridan, Wyo., and Steve KOONCE of Boulder; daughters Susan KOONCE of Durango and Ann BALDWIN of Grand Junction; and a sister, Marguerite SPANO of Westminster.
He is also survived by 16 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
A memorial mass will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Eagle.
Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice and Palliative Care of Western Colorado, P.O. Box 60307, Grand Junction, CO, 81506.
Eagle Valley Enterprise page 5 - January 16, 2003
Harold Koonce, 1916-2003
Valley bids farewell to a man of gentle manner, fierce convictions by Kathy Heicher
After 86 years, Harold Koonce's presence is just about everywhere in this valley.
It's part of the ski season bustle at the Eagle County Regional Airport. It's reflected in the eagerness of students who crowd into the Colorado Mountain College building in Eagle for adult education classes in the evening. He is a presence at the Vail Valley Medical Center and the Steadman-Hawkins Clinic, where patiences get the most up-to-date treatment available for injured bones and joints. Many of his memories of growing up in the valley are captured in the archives of the Eagle County Historical Society.
Most of all, Koonce's spirit is present in the wife, children, grandchildren, and friends and associated left behind following his death Jan. 5 in Grand Junction after a lengthy illness. Friends and family gathered at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Eagle on Jan. 11 to celebrate the life of the man with a gentle manner, feirce convictions, great community spirit, and a talent for making puns.
The Koonce family roots in the Eagle Valley stretch back to the turn of the 20th century, when his father arrived in Eagle in 1901. Harold Winston Koonce was born in Eagle on Nov. 29, 1916 to Arthur B. and Anna Laura Haubrich Koonce. Harold, always a talented writer, described a "marvelous, old-fashioned childhood" in the family memoir that he wrote.
Koonce and his sister, Marguerite, grew up in the family home on teh southwest end of town that is now the Eagle Valley Pet Hospital on Highway 6. The home was part of the "Koonce Triangle"-- where an old abandoned hay mow served as a makeshift basketball court with baskets made of barrel hoops and gunny sacks, and where the cow pasture doubled as a baseball field for local kids, cow-pies serving as bases.
Harold's childhood friend, Dr. Woodrow Brown of Hotchkiss, a retired physician, remembers those days of basketball games, Harold's stint as patrol leader of a local Boy Scout troop in the 1930s and gathering at the Koonce home to listen to the broadcast of the Rose Bowl football game on the radio.
"He was a leader everywhere he went," says Brown.
High school basketball games were played in the upstairs of the Woodman's Hall, now the Brush Creek Saloon building, in downtown Eagle. Koonce would recall ruefully that the basketball floor was so short the free-throw circle and center circle overlapped. Koonce had some proud memories of scoring 12 points in a game that secured the championship for Eagle High School.
Harold graduated from Eagle High School in 1933 in a class of seven students. He went on to attend the University of Colorado, where he admitted to being a 'mixed scholar' with good grades in math, science, and English and less-stellar grades in cultural sbujects, such as literature and economics.
At CU, Koonce, who always had a talent for writing, worked his way up to the position of sports editor of the college's Silver and Gold newspaper. Brown says Koonce had a knack for making up nicknames. It was Koonce, Brown says, who coined the nickname "Swisher Schwartz" for famed basketball player Jim Schwartz. Koonce and a Denver Post sports editor hung the nickname "whizzer" on CU football player Byron White, who went on to become a Supreme Court justice.
After obtaining a business degree from CU, Koonce returned to Eagle and went into business with his father at what the two men recognized as one of the most promising businesses of the times-- automobiles and their servicing. His father built the first concrete-flooored, sheet-metal-clad garage building in town-- now the Wiemer Heating building at 338 Washington Street-- in the 1910s and in 1928, built an all-concrete garage building at the corner of Second and Broadway in Eagle. That evolved in the Koonce Chevrolet dealership; the building now houses Colorado Mountain College.
Harold married Alice May Randall, a young woman from Glenwood Springs he had met on a blind date, on June 22, 1941.
During World War II, Koonce joined the Navy and was one of 60 midshipmen selected to participate in what he called a "90-Day Wonder" ensign program at Harvard University. After studying a combination fo business and naval science, Koonce obtained his ensign commission and was assigned as a supply officer abroad a destroyed, the U.S.S. Leutze, which was sent to the Pacific front. Koonce earned seven battle stars, survived a kamikaze attack on the ship near Okinawa in 1945, and came out of the Navy as a lieutenant.
Business and Community
Although tempted by the prospect of a life-long Navy career and the opportunity to complete his MBA, Koonce was drawn back to Eagle and the family buisness. Harold and Alice Koonce, meanwhile, raised five children in Eagle.
"I don't think he ever had any thoughts of leaving there. He liked the town and enjoyed what he was doing," said Brown.
The Koonces operated the Chevrolet agency for 30 years, holding a distributorship with the Phillips Petroleum Company for 40 years.
In the mid-1960s, as Vail began to develop, Koonce saw another promising business opportunity in wholesaling paper products and cleaning materials in inns and restaurant, spurring the creation of the Hometown Supply Company, a business that thrived for several decades.
Koonce was always active in the community and his work refelcts his visionary bent. In the 1930s and 1940s, Koonce was one of the group a businessmen who pushed for development of an airfield at Cooley Mesa. As a member of the Colorado Mountain College Board of Trustees, he helped guide the college through its first 11 years of existence in the mid-1960s and 1970s. He always lobbied hard for a college presence in Eagle.
Those early years of the college were difficult. The business of forming a new, regional taxing district was demanding, and board members had to travel a five-county region for meetings and business. Steve Mills, a former vice president of CMC, says Koonce was always in the middle of settling territorial disputes between campuses that stretched from the Continental Divide to Mesa County. The college history credits Koonce with coming up with the name "Colorado Mountain College".
"Plus, he was a nice guy," he adds.
That feeling is echoed by former Eagle County Commissioner Don Welch, who served on the Vail Valley Medical Center Board of Directors with Koonce from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s. That was the period when the hospital was undergoing expansions. Welch remembers Koonce as being instrumental in recruiting of Dr. Richard Steadman and the creation of the Steadman-Hawkins Clinic.
"Harold had a great sense of humor. What a wonderful man," says Welch. "He was a very erudite man-- his use of the English language was outstanding. You'd smile when you saw because you knew you would be having a conversation about something of interest."
The Greatest Grandpa
Although devoted to his business and community endeavors, Koonce's first priority was always family. His grandchildren probably were never all that aware of his business acumen or his community service; what they did know was the Koonce house was a welcoming place for the extended family. Christmas vacations always involved a ski trip, with grandpa leading the troops.
Koonce loved to ski, continuing the sport well into retirement and page the age where most people hang up their skis.
He shared his love of the mountains with family .Grandson Mark McKelvie recalls harold's backpacking trips were not exactly Spartan adventures. They packed steaks, pancake mixes and toiled up the trails many a time with great effort. All that work paid off with great food and fishing adventures at the top. Craig Peak was always a favorite family hiking spot, although Koonce would chide the grandchildren if they allowed his dogs to pull them uphill on leashes.
Koonce collectively, but lovingly, referred to his grandchildren as the "No Goods"--"NGs" for short-- and created a mock corporation for them. The Koonce offspring says they remember their grandpa helping them stafe formal meetings, teachin the kids a bit of Roberts' Rules of Order along with the fun.
For those grandchildren, Koonce cooked up his "PFPs" or "Pop's Famous Pancakes" and dished up "RBFs", or root beer floats with a generous hand.
Apparently a man of great courage, as well as patience, Koonce also operated his own family driving school, letting the grandchildren street his green tractor or his old Scout around his driveway suffering some downed fences and crunched landscaping with grace. Upon completion of "Pop's Driving School" each grandchild was present with an elaborate and official-looking certificate.
Koonce was also a dedicated local historian, assembling a family scrapbook, which of course was a no-nonsense affair. Made from an artist's sketchbook, bolstered by duct tape borders on the covers and held together with a piece of twine, the book bristles with photographs, diplomas, certificates and newspaper clippings, all reflecting key moments in Koonce family history. Everything in the book is interesting.
A few years ago, concerned the chronicles of the town were going to be forgotten, he painstakingly typed out a manuscript entitled "Rambling Recollections of Mid-Early Eagle". The well-written piece is a treasure in the Eagle County Historical archives with its descriptions of the businesses on main street, the social scene and the people of days past. Koonce's loyalty to his community is clear in that 26-page memoir as revealed by the prologue he wrote: "This narrative-to-come stems from the belief that Eagle is held in esteem by us old-timers as the finest small town in Western Colorado," Koonce wrote.
Six years ago, Koonce's deteriorating health prompted he and Alice to move away from town to a location where Harold could more easily receive the medical care he needed. The move away from their roots was difficult for them both. They eventually relocated to Grand Junction, where Harold faced the final, difficult months of his life with the same patience and courage he had always displayed in life.
Harold Koonce is survived by: his wife, Alice; sons Chris of Sheridan, Mont., and Steve of Boulder; daughters Susan Koonce of Durango and Ann Baldwin of Grand Junction; sister Marguerite Spano of Westminster; 16 grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren. One son, Hal Koonce Jr., preceded him in death.
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel page 8B - January 8, 2003
