ALBERT L. "VAN"

VAN ORNUM

Eagle River resident Albert L. "Van" Van Ornum, 70, died Sunday of congestive heart failure.

A Celebration of Life ceremony will be held at 4 p.m. Monday downstairs at the Eagle River VFW post.

Van Ornum was born April 12, 1933, in Bozeman, Mont. He moved to Alaska in 1962.

Van Ornum was retired from the Army and civil services, of which some of his career he spent at Fort Richardson. He was an avid hunter and fisher, and his ashes will be spread at some of his favorite sites.

Van Ornum may be best known, however, for helping clean up Eagle River.

"Our dad was not only full of pride about his family but full of his pride in his community also," wrote his family. "It showed every time he left his house with garbage bags and trash picker-upper in hand."

Van Ornum is survived by his wife Carole D. Van Ornum; son and daughter-in-law Charles and Lou Ann Van Ornum of Big Lake; daughters and sons-in-law Mary and Glen "Hobbit" Keller of Peters Creek, and Abbe and Willie "Billy" Sikes of Birchwood; grandchildren Dakota, Carole, Jess and Rosie Keller and Courtney Sikes; mother Elizabeth Bowden of Mesa, Ariz.; sister and brother-in-law, Betty and Robert Sayers of Mesa, Ariz. and mother-in-law Mary R. Adams of Davie, Fla.

His family said, "He will be greatly missed by his family and many friends. He was our jack-of-all trades, Mr. Fix-it, the rock of our family."

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that residents "help a child discover and enjoy his world and pick up some trash along the way."