John Ralph McLaughlin

A third-generation Beaumont resident and a firefighter, John McLaughlin passed away peacefully on June 1, 2023, at the age of 77. Born on Dec. 30, 1945, McLaughlin was a 1963 Beaumont High School graduate. His grandfather brought the family to Beaumont in 1928 from Arizona, and McLaughlin’s late father, Don McLaughlin, was a well-known employee at the Beaumont Hardware and Lumber Co. and a Beaumont City Council member in the 1940s and again in the 1980s; his late mother, Thelma McLaughlin, owned and operated the Vogue Beauty Salon above their home on 8th St., where John grew up with brothers, Walter and Dan, and sister, Sandy.

As a young man, John worked at many businesses in the area that no longer exist: He was a busboy at the Rusty Lantern; he canned apricots in the summers at the Banning Canning Company; he pumped gas for Blaine’s Super Shell; he worked in the engineering department at the General Telephone Co.; and he was briefly a technical writer at Deutsch Company.

In 1970, John McLaughlin joined the Beaumont City Fire Department as a volunteer firefighter alongside his father, who had been a volunteer for decades. Within a few years, John was hired full-time with the department, the start of a nearly 30-year career in the fire service.

“Working in the fire service was the type of job that when it was time to go to work, you wanted to go,” said John, when he was honored with the Heritage Award from the Cherry Festival Association in 2018. “It was an exciting and fulfilling career helping people when they were most in need.”

As the Heritage Award honoree, McLaughlin and his wife, Rhea, and grandchildren, Sam and Cora, rode in that year’s Cherry Festival parade in an open-cab 1931 Double A Ford fire engine, one of the first fire engines to be commissioned in Riverside County.

John also attended Mt. San Jacinto College, where he earned an associate degree and met Rhea Reynolds, and they were married in 1965 at the Beaumont First Christian Church, and their daughters, Laurie McLaughlin and Lisa McLaughlin Rogstad, are also Beaumont High School graduates.

John’s firefighting career expanded when the Beaumont City Fire Department contracted with Riverside County in 1978, and he became an employee of the California Department of Forestry (now Cal Fire) and served the department as an emergency dispatcher, training officer and battalion chief as he rose through the ranks. He retired in 2001 as a Riverside County Cal Fire Division Chief responsible for fire operations from Desert Hot Springs to Blythe.

John loved his hometown, and he was serving as San Gorgonio Pass Historical Society president at the time of his death. He was very devoted to sharing information about the history of the local area, encouraging historic preservation, and was immersed in all the activities, exhibits and presentations that the society offered.

John and Rhea, who retired as the library director of the Beaumont Library District in 1990, were honored by the city during Beaumont’s 2012 centennial anniversary celebration for their past volunteer activities and community service. He was also a board member of the Beaumont Kiwanis Club, was a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and served in various capacities within the Four Seasons homeowners association. Over the many years, he’s been involved in the numerous activities of his daughters and grandchildren in addition to managing a Pony League team and serving as president of the Beaumont High School Alumni Association; as a member of the fire department, he helped organize Toys for Tots, Fourth of July fireworks and spent many days and nights working at the Beaumont Volunteer Fire Department’s popular Taco Booth at the Cherry Festival.

“My parents were very active in many organizations in Beaumont, and they instilled the ethic of community service in all of their children,” said John in 2018. “Great cities are made by involved citizens.”

John was preceded in death by his parents, Don and Thelma McLaughlin; brother Walter McLaughlin; father-in-law Bill Reynolds; and brothers-in-law Bill Reynolds and Mark Reynolds.

He is survived by wife Rhea McLaughlin; brother Dan McLaughlin of Beaumont; sister Sandy Barry of Lincoln, Calif.; daughter Laurie McLaughlin of Beaumont; daughter Lisa Rogstad, her husband, Kyle Rogstad, and their children, Sam Rogstad and Cora Rogstad, of Gresham, Ore.; and many other family members.

A visitation will be held at Weaver Mortuary, 1177 Beaumont Ave., Beaumont, on Friday, June 16, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Funeral services are Saturday, June 17, 10 a.m. at the Fellowship Church, 650 Oak Valley Pkwy., in Beaumont. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Riverside County Professional Firefighters Benevolent Fund, rcpfbf.com; the Historical Society and Museum of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, calfirehistory.com; or San Gorgonio Pass Historical Society, P.O. Box 331, Beaumont, CA, 92223.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.weaver-mortuary.com for the McLaughlin family.