Donald H. Worthylake

Donald peacefully passed  August 26 at the Idaho State Veterans Home after a long life of service to his country, community and the larger world around him.  He entered the US Navy 3 weeks after Pearl Harbor on his 18th birthday. Following his graduation from the Navy School of Music he served all over the world for 35 years as a bandsman, bandmaster and ultimately retiring as the director of training then executive director of the Armed Forces School of Music. During the war(s) he was crosstrained in fire control and later in Naval intelligence.

After his military retirement, he moved to McCammon and then served in the volunteer fire department for 20 years, as a Bannock county fire commissioner, as a volunteer for the South Bannock County Museum in Lava, was a correspondent for the Idaho State Journal, volunteered with 4H, the Portneuf  Soil and Water conservation  district and was a long time docent at the Idaho Museum of Natural History at ISU.  Over his many years in McCammon he participated in a habitat restoration project with Fish and Game and planted over a thousand trees. Donald loved all critters, adopted and rehabbed many and kept the birds fed at the Veterans  Home.

He lost the love of his life, Muriel, after 67 years of marriage, outlived all his siblings, and one grandson. He is survived by a daughter, Kathleen Spiegel of McCammon, a son Ken Worthylake in Pensacola Florida and a son Steven Costa in Arcata California.  There are 4 surviving grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

Having outlived almost all his contemporaries, his  bandsmen,  students and much of his family he has requested no services.  To honor his memory plant a tree, support a student, volunteer in your community and feed the birds.