Charles R. Stout

September 17, 1926 – January 17, 2012

Richard C. Stout of Grand Junction passed away on January 17th at the VA Community Living Center. Born September 17, 1926 to Fred and Edna Stout in a log cabin along the Colorado River at Sweetwater, Colorado, he was the 9th of their 12 children.

His love for hunting began at childhood and he shot his first deer for food for the family at 12 years old. After a childhood working on the family’s two ranches, he left home at 17 to join the Navy. He served with honor in World War II on the USS hart, a destroyer that saw action in the pacific Campaign.

When the war ended, he attended the Coyne Electrical School in Chicago. Upon returning, he met and married Helen Hatch, a waitress at the Hanging Lake Café near Glenwood and took a job as battery tender in the New Jersey Zinc mine in Gilman, Colorado. They bought a home in Minturn and began a family, having three boys: Richard Lee, Glenn, and Lyle.

After working a number of years as an electrician at Gilman and then at the molybdenum mine at Climax, he moved the family to Grand Junction where he worked as a mine electrician in the uranium industry and at various electric motor shops. In later years he worked at the Vail ski resort as an electrician and then came back to Grand Junction and started Stout’s Electric with his son Lyle, where he worked until he retired in 1989.

He and Helen then traveled extensively throughout the United States and Canada enjoying many beautiful years of retirement, and he will always be remembered for the mouthwatering turkeys he cooked for family events. His love for hunting continued with an annual hunting trip with Glenn for many years and he shot his last deer at age 79.

He was preceded in death by his son Richard Lee, and is survived by Helen, Glenn (Pam), Lyle (Jill), his grandson James (Ashley), a brother Dale of Rocky Ford, a sister Georgia Bowen of Loveland, and sisters Mary Bennett and Hazel Rabel of Grand Junction.

In Lieu of flowers, the family asks that a donation be made to VA Community Living Center to thank them for the loving care and respect they gave Richard in his last months. A remembrance will be held later in the spring at the Veteran’s Cemetery when his ashes are interred. Condolences may be left for the family at www.martinmortuary.com