Young, Vernon J. “Volunteer Vern” Born in Tacoma, WA in 1935 he passed away Jan 7, 2014 after a short battle with cancer. He enjoyed life for 78 years. A longtime resident of Gig Harbor, Vern graduated from Peninsula High School in 1955. He served in the Coast Guard and graduated from Clover Park Vocational School. He began his career in the airline industry with West Coast Airlines in 1963. He married Betty Louise Allen in 1964 and they just celebrated 50 years of marriage on Jan 4th of this year. Vern was a man with many passionate interests including mental health advocacy, fly fishing, environmental issues, land conservation, and Send Out Cards. He volunteered with the Pierce County conservation district to help install many of the signs marking streams along Pierce County roads. He helped raise funds for the purchase of land to be made into parks including Sehmel Homestead and Harbor Family Park. He attained life time membership at Weight Watchers. He was an active member of the Puget Sound Fly fishers and was awarded the Al Allard award for outstanding service to PSFF. He was also recognized by the Washington State Council of the FFF as “Federator of the Year” in 1997. He enjoyed traveling with his wife – as long as it included fishing! They enjoyed trips through Canada, the Baja Peninsula, and the U.S. including Alaska. After retiring from the airlines his passion for volunteering led him to establish Enviroc-orps Volunteer and Education Alliance (Envirocorps) which helps match people with various volunteer opportunities such as litter pick up, trail maintenance and service projects. He is survived by his wife Betty, son Mark Young, daughter Shari Young Allard (Charles) twin grandchildren James and Joanna Allard, his brother Roger C Young, 4 nieces and nephews and many friends in the Gig Harbor community. We, his family, are very grateful for all the kind words and out pouring of love and support during this difficult time. A celebration of life will be held at a later date. Donations in Vern’s memory may be made to Envirocorps at Envirocorps.org.
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