Charles Douglas “Papa” LaRue

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Charles Douglas “Papa”  LaRue gazed upon ol’ Mount Rainier from his front porch in Mineral, Wash., for the last time June 26, 2018.

Chuck was born July 28, 1951, in Port Angeles, Wash., to Barbara and Evan LaRue. 

From his formative years to his death, Chuck preferred living in small towns surrounded by good people. For his senior year of high school, he transferred from the small town of Port Angeles to the even smaller town of Joyce, where he graduated in 1969. Then after retirement, he moved to Mineral, where he worked with the American Legion to organize the Mineral Lake trout fishing derby and relished having a front row seat should Mount Rainier ever erupt. 

Chuck had a quirky sense of humor and had a nickname for everyone. He called his wife, Darlene and her twin sister, Marlene “Darlin” and “Marlin”. He once had a dog named Kitty and a cat named Doggy. And he referred to his stepdaughters, Dawn and Daisy as “Bo-Tangles”.

He was easy to get along with and always saw the good in people. You could say he lived and let be, with one exception where his sisters noted he used to dye chocolate cake green and make a single chocolate chip cookie from an entire batch of cookie dough then proceed to eat it all by himself. 

In the early 1970s, Chuck served one term in the United States Air Force, then enrolled in a technical college, where he learned how to write computer programs. He spent most of his career writing code for Braniff International Airways in Dallas, Texas, then later maintained main frame computers for PACCAR in Bellevue, Wash. 

You could say living in Texas rubbed off on him because there he picked up a southern drawl and learned how to play bluegrass, country and folk music on his banjo and acoustic guitar. Chuck used to perform hillbilly shows with his old man, Evan at The Barn in Winthrop, Wash. 

It would have been easy to dismiss Chuck as a hillbilly, but those that knew him saw an intellectual curiosity that fueled lifelong learning where he researched everything from astronomy to de-bunking conspiracy theories. 

Chuck is survived by his mother, Barbara Barnes and her husband, Don; sister, Evana Pratt and her children, Barbara, Ben, Billy and Jason; sister, Shirlee Reinard and her husband, Bill and son, Charles; son, Tony LaRue and his wife, Tanya and their daughters, Harley, Brooke, Renee and Janelle; stepdaughter, Dawn Stroud and her husband, Jeff and their son, Aaron; stepdaughter, Daisy Calhoun and her son, Dillon Schuler; and his Bichon Frise named, Belly Button on the good days and Barky Butt on the bad days. 

His wife, Darlene (Johnson), whom he married in 1998, preceded him in death in January 2017.

A celebration of life will be held at the Mineral Cemetery, Friday, July 20, 2018, at 1 p.m., followed by a potluck at the Mineral American Legion Hall.