Charles Albert Boyden

Charles A. (Chuck) Boyden, aged 98, died on 22 July 2020 in Prineville, where he had resided for 56 years.  He was born 25 January 1922 in Medford, Oregon, the first child of Charles Z. Boyden and Grace Tayler Boyden.  He was a football halfback at Medford High School and subsequently graduated in civil engineering from what is now Oregon State University.  In 1942, he joined the United States Navy as a junior officer and served in naval construction battalions (‘Seabees’) for the duration of the war, at Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Tarawa, and New Caledonia.  Returning to Oregon, in 1947 he married Marie (born Maria Ferraris).  Their marriage lasted more than seventy years.

Chuck made a career with the California-Oregon Power Co. and its successor Pacific Power & Light, serving as a supervising engineer on hydroelectric projects on the Umpqua River, then as local manager at Tulelake, California, and finally as Prineville manager for PP&L from 1964 until his retirement in 1982.  Throughout his life, he was an avid fisherman, and fishing, golf, and traveling with Marie, especially to the Oregon Coast, were the pastimes of a long pleasant retirement.  Perhaps his greatest disappointment was the unending nightmare of Oregon State football, but he lived to see and cheer on the triumphant Beaver baseball teams of recent years.

Chuck was preceded in death by his brother Mark Boyden and sister Barbara Michaelis, as by Marie, who died in 2018.  He is survived by son James Boyden and daughter-in-law Alisa Plant, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and by several nieces and nephews and their children.  Funeral arrangements are private, but there will be a memorial service when the pandemic abates.  Chuck loved Prineville, and community service, especially through Kiwanis, was an enduring commitment.  Memorial donations in his name may be made to the Crook County Historical Society.

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