Download

Download Full Text (47 KB)

Obituary

NSA Life Member Starr Jenkins, 95, died February 15, 2021, in San Luis Obispo, California. He was born in Chicago on June 1, 1925. Starr entered the Navy at 17 during WW-II but was then given an appointment to West Point. Starr liked the Navy and, after six months at West Point, found a way to leave the Army and return to the Navy, being stationed at Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay. After his discharge at the end of WWII, Starr entered the University of New Mexico where he got his BA in 1948. He rookied at Cave Junction in 1948 and transferred to Missoula for the 1949 season. Starr got his master's degree at Stanford, and his Ph.D. back at the University of New Mexico. In 1961 Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, hired him to teach English and Literature, a career he loved for 28 years. Summers, he frequently worked as a Park Ranger in Yosemite. His article published in the magazine Nature about what needed to be done to control and offset environmental damage from overcrowding in Yosemite was picked up by the U.S. Secretary of Interior, who implemented all 14 of Starr's recommendations. Starr's non-fiction and fiction articles and stories were published in Look Magazine, Life Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, Man Against Nature, and he published a number of books like Brothers in the Sky-49 about adventures smoke jumping. He was also a frequent contributor to Smokejumper magazine over the years. Starr's brother Hugh (MSO-49) was killed in Korea December 24, 1953 and posthumously awarded the Silver Star.

Identifier

Jenkins_Starr_Cave-Junction_1948

Publication Date

April 2021

Keywords

Smokejumping; Smokejumpers -- United States; National Smokejumper Association; Wildfire fighters; Obituaries

Disciplines

Forest Management

Smokejumper Obituary: Jenkins, Starr (Cave Junction 1948)

Search based on Keywords

Smokejumping

Smokejumpers -- United States

National Smokejumper Association

Wildfire fighters

Obituaries

Share

COinS