John Geter August 27, 1928 – February 02, 2019 Share this obituary Send Flowers Sign Guestbook| Send Sympathy Card Faithful husband, father, deacon and agricultural engineer who lived and worked all over the United States and in eight countries during his 45 year career. John Geter, 90, passed away in his sleep on Saturday, February 2nd at the Columbine Centre Avenue Health and Rehab Facility, in Fort Collins, CO. John was born in Centreville, Mississippi to Leo A. Geter, Sr. and Emily Geter.
The youngest of six siblings, John’s connection to the land began early as he worked on his family’s farm in Woodville, MS, plowing fields behind a mule, tending livestock, cutting sugar cane, and attending Pioneer Baptist Church. He enjoyed helping his father deliver the mail on his truck, one of the only vehicles in the area, so it doubled as a local taxi. Eager to follow in his three brothers’ footsteps during WWII, John fudged his age and joined the Navy at 17 and sailed on an oil tanker for two years, covering ports in Asia and the Middle East.
John always spoke of his time in the Navy with deep emotion and credited it with opening the world to him. He came home to Mississippi where he drove a gravel truck and a school bus before taking a job as a high school math teacher. Uncertain of his next move, he loved to tell the story of how one day an older teacher told him he’d be a “damn fool” not to take advantage of the GI Bill and go to college.
He may not have known what he wanted to do, but he knew he didn’t want to be a fool, so it was off to Mississippi State, then Louisiana State University where he graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Agricultural Engineering in 1952. He joined the Soil Conservation Service, and thus began a rich, varied career that would change locales over 40 times in his lifetime. His first job in Clinton, Oklahoma, would chart his destiny in more ways than one.
Working for the USDA in the small office there, he met a beautiful young woman, Bonnie Pearl Foust, and they were married on June 27, 1954. John and Bonnie would have five children in the first thirteen years of their marriage as they moved between jobs in Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arizona, and eventually Danville, Indiana where they lived for eleven years. While there, John began as a State Engineer and rose to the level of Assistant State Conservationist, and he also helped establish the Danville Southern Baptist Chapel where he led the singing and his eldest son, John, played the piano.
They made many lifelong friends in Danville, and their kids thrived in the local schools. That all changed in 1975 when, on a whim, John put in for a foreign service assignment. That autumn, all seven Geters moved from safe, familiar Indiana to the barren deserts of Lashkargah, Afghanistan, where John took over as Team Leader of a huge irrigation and drainage project in the Helmand River Valley.
Of the many foreign assignments he would go on to have, John always spoke of this one as his favorite, because he felt he was able to do the most good there. He had a special connection with the Afghan farmers struggling to survive without modern farm tools, because it wasn’t that different from his own upbringing. After many wild adventures and side-trips to Pakistan, India, Kashmir and Nepal, the family returned to Washington D.C. just before the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
In the next 15 years, Bonnie and John would live and work for the USDA in Puerto Rico, Haiti, and Mexico (where he retired in 1985) and then as a private contractor in St. Kitts-Nevis, Indonesia, and for two separate tours in Egypt. They relished meeting people from every culture imaginable and made so many cherished friends. Eventually they retired to Mountain Home, Arkansas, where after many years wandering the globe they enjoyed the close proximity to family in Oklahoma and Mississippi.
From there they made their way west to Red Feather Lakes, CO where they purchased 10 acres in the high mountains. Eventually, health concerns brought them down the hill, first to Mesa, Arizona, then Payson, Arizona and finally to Ft. Collins where they have lived near their son Frank and daughter-in-law Laurie, until the present time.
John was predeceased by his parents, Leo A. Geter, Sr. and Emily Katherine Geter; his brothers Leo A. Geter, Jr., Henry Lee Geter, Alex Boyd Geter; his sister, Emily Katherine Storey; his son, John A. Geter, Jr.; his son-in-law Mike Green; and his daughter, Deborah Sue Green. He is survived by his wife and best friend of 64 years, Bonnie Geter; his sister, Mary Ella Trevillion; his sons, Frank Geter, Leo Geter, and Ken Geter; his daughters-in-law, Laurie Geter, Anne Marlow-Geter; his grandchildren, Laura Green, Stephanie Young, James Green, Dana Bauer, Michelle Geter, Christina Weatherington; and his two great-grandsons, Milton Young and Seamus Young. John was a graceful, confident man with a quick smile.
He always led by example, and there was never a problem he left for tomorrow. His love and commitment to his spouse and children never waivered. He was especially proud to give them a chance to see the world and learn we’re all one big human family – just as the Navy had shown him all those years ago.
John and Bonnie are members of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ Church in Ft. Collins, and a memorial service will be held there at 4pm on Saturday, March 30th. (916 West Prospect Road, Fort Collins, CO 80526) The interment service, with military honors, will follow two days later on Monday April 1st at Ft.
Logan in Denver, CO at 10:30 am.
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