Richard "Bucko" Lavern Barton

Richard Lavern "Bucko" Barton, 72, of La Grande, died peacefully with his wife of 50 years at his bedside April 7 at a local care center.

At his request there will be no funeral. A graveside service will begin at 2 p.m. Monday at Island City Cemetery.

Bucko was born Sept. 27, 1937, to Harry B. and Lois M. Barton at his aunt's home in La Grande. His early life was spent on the family farm on Pumpkin Ridge. He graduated from Imbler High School in 1955, as salutatorian and Athlete of the Year. He attended Eastern Oregon College in La Grande on a scholarship. Richard went to work for the West Coast Telephone Co. in La Grande and helped install the first dial phone exchange.

He worked for The Western Union Telegraph Co. in Portland, where he traveled throughout Oregon and Washington. In 1958, Richard was detailed to California, Utah and Texas, and came back to La Grande late in the year and met his wife to be.

He married Lana M. Gulzow in La Grande on June 12, 1959, and they moved to California. In 1961, Richard was detailed to the Panama Canal Zone, and while he was gone, his first and only child was due to be born, but he lucked out and his daughter waited until he returned and was born on June 10, 1961, which kept Richard from being drafted into the military service.

In 1964, he was detailed to New York City to work on engineering the latest military computer communication system, which lasted until 1965. He then became in charge of the military systems throughout the West, which required him to fly somewhere every week. In 1966, Richard was detailed to Hawaii in charge of the Pacific and Far East Computer Communication Systems installations.

In 1967, he was promoted to a position in San Francisco, in charge of installation and maintenance operations in Northern California and Nevada. Richard then added to his electrical engineering degree with a course in electronic engineering from CREI. In 1968 Richard was promoted to a position in Los Angeles as manager of Projects and Material for Southern California and Arizona.

In 1970, he was promoted to a position in Belleville, Ill., as director in charge of all government and commercial order processing and billing for the company. Richard then took a course in Credit and Collections and went to Belleville Area College for two years to study finance, accounting and data processing. In 1975 he was promoted to senior director in Maryland Heights, Mo., where he was in charge of the National Billing and Order Processing Center for the company.

During the time Richard was in the Midwest, he was confronted with flying almost weekly throughout the United States. He retired from Western Union at age 50, and then did consulting work in telecommunications and computer application programming for three years. Then he started studying world events and history. He loved pre-recorded music that he collected.

In 1997 he and his wife moved back to La Grande, where they started. He finished writing his first book and had it published in 2003 and continued writing with two additional history books.

He is survived by his wife; and a daughter and son-in-law, Kelly and Rich Sunkel of St. Louis; an aunt; sister, Virginia Stillman of Heppner; mother-in-law, Ella V. Gulzow of La Grande; sisters-in-law, Ardyce Boorse of Oregon City, and Wenda Maestretti and her husband, Jeff, of Walla Walla; brother-in-law, David Gulzow and his wife, Cindy, of La Grande; and numerous nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his sisters, Maxine Ennis and Peggy Burch; brother Keith; and both parents.

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