Kirby Scott Dawson Jr.
Kirby Scott Dawson Jr.
Kirby Scott Dawson Jr. passed away
peacefully after a short illness, the evening of Friday, March 20, 2020, in
Boise, Idaho, with his loving daughter, Christa, by his side.
Born August 17, 1934 to Kirby Scott
Dawson Sr. and Eleanor Jean Dawson. Kirby grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. He
was a child of the depression, and lived through rationing during World War II,
experiences which informed his direction in life and his pursuit of solidity
and security in his work. After graduating from East High School in Salt Lake
City, Kirby studied mechanical engineering at the University of Utah,
graduating in 1958. He moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho after college to work as a
Nuclear Engineer for E.G.& G. at what is now the Idaho National Laboratory,
where he worked until his retirement. His time there included assignments as a
DOE contractor in both Germantown, Maryland and Boulder, Colorado.
An avid skier, Kirby was a
decades-long member of the American Association of Ski Instructors, and even
spent a season training with the French mountaineers in Chamonix, France. He
was instrumental in the early days of Kelly Canyon Ski Resort outside of Idaho
Falls. He started and ran the “Snoopy Ski School” and even named some of the
hill’s runs including “Slithery Dee” and “Pinto Buffalo.” He later ran the ski
school at Taylor Mountain, instilling his love of the sport in thousands of
people during his life. He even studied and perfected ski ballet, much to the
delight of his children and casual observers on the mountain.
Kirby was also a pioneering
skydiver, a Jumpmaster and Star Crest Solo award recipient, completing dozens
of formation jumps (“stars”) of up to 12 people while always doing his best to
execute a “standing landing” for his kids who cheered from the ground. He
completed nearly 700 jumps. Like his mother Eleanor, he was a scratch golfer
well into his later years, achieving at least a couple holes in one during his
years on the links. He loved the outdoors most of all, whether skiing and
hiking, mountain climbing, camping and fishing, golfing, tending his lush
vegetable garden or his raspberry canes, hunting arrow-heads in the southern
Idaho desert (with a split-point ski pole to fend off the rattlesnakes) and
bringing home “horny toads” for his kids, cutting firewood and picking
huckleberries in the forests above Heise Hot Springs, or setting traps for
crawdads in a mountain stream. Legacies (especially including his love for
huckleberries and his endless quest for the perfect berry pie recipe) he passed
along to his three children.
Kirby lived life robustly and with
zest, and had endless stories to show for it. From the black powder experiments
with friends at age 17 that resulted in perhaps his most memorable physical
feature—his three-fingered left hand, and his adventures hopping trains,
sneaking onto Augusta National Golf Course through an irrigation culvert (the
week before the Master’s), sleeping off a rager in a jump plane on a
tarmac only to be awakened by the police, climbing onto a neighbor’s house to
pick apples and losing most of his top teeth to the clothesline when she
sprayed him down with the hose, or escaping a smoking fine in the Denver airport
by telling security he was an “undercover officer, making sure they were doing
their job” (and then giving the officer a dollar as a tip). Kirby could regale
friends and family for hours with stories, limericks, and old songs, and his
quips, quotes, and catch phrases (hot as two-dollar pistol, cold as a witch’s
tit, ass over tea-kettle, hotter than seven hundred dollars) live on as
“fiction and fact from Dawson’s almanac.” As a child he enjoyed spin tops and
picked them back up as an adult, teaching his children, grandchildren, and even
nieces and nephews the fine art of spinning a top. He and Christa held top
demonstrations in Tautphus Park, where she acted the part of a heckler in their
well-rehearsed show, goading him to “do better” to the shock of those in the
audience. At Christmas he would don a Santa hat and spin his top in the mall to
the delight of shoppers and their children.
Kirby’s faith in Christ became the
driving force in the second half of his life, and he will always be remembered
by family and friends as endlessly kind, funny, loving, adventurous, and
curious. Kirby was preceded in death by his loving wife of nearly forty years -
Teri Dawson (Thompson), whom he cared tenderly for as he lost her to
Alzheimer's last September; and his sister, Patsy Arnold (Salt Lake
City). He is survived by his sister, Mary Lynne Edison (Salt Lake City);
his children: Britiney Slaughter (Mike) of Boise; Brandon Dawson (Sarah Rose)
of Cincinnati, Ohio; Christa Arnstam (David) of Boise; and his eight grandchildren
- Dawson, Mason, and Jordan Slaughter; Avian Dawson and Oliver Dawson-Nordgren;
and Amelia, Catherine, and Isaac Arnstam. He instilled a love of gardening,
skiing and adventure in his children and grandchildren that we are heart-broken
to carry on without him. He will be deeply missed. A gathering to honor and
remember his life will be held at a later date.
“You’re wounded!” “Nay,” the
soldier’s pride
Touched to the
quick, he said:
“I’m killed,
Sire!” and his chief beside
Smiling the
boy fell dead.
- Robert
Browning
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