Guy Thomas Barton

Guy Thomas Barton, 55, passed away at his home in Wasilla on March 5, 2010.

Guy was born July 11, 1954, in Boulder, Colo. He graduated from Fairview High School in 1972. He then worked as a miner in the Leadville and Silverton, Colo., areas, including a summer spent horse packing into a Chicago Basin prospect. In 1980, he and friend Mike set off for Alaska, towing a trailer that would be their home for several years. He worked at the Ester Dome gold mine near Fairbanks and then in the fishing industry on Kodiak Island and in the waters off the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands.

He gave up the rigors of the fishing industry to take a job with a recycling company, working his way up to become manager of the Anchorage facility. Injuries suffered in mining and fishing forced him to retire early and take disability. He moved to Wasilla in 2007, where he served on the board of directors of the Valley Community Recycling Solution until his death.

Guy had a lifelong passion for fishing, nurtured early in life by his mother on family vacations to Grand Mesa, Colo. In Alaska, the long daylight hours of summer were ideal for pursuing the trout, steelheads, salmon and halibut of the Kenai Peninsula. He had a long-standing love of dogs; Murphy and then Otis were his personable, but eccentric, canine companions.

Guy was predeceased by his mother, Norma Jean Barton, and wife Vera Barton.

He is survived by his father, Harlan Barton and step-mother, Judy Barton of Boulder; his brother, Scott Barton and wife Laura of Boulder; his brother, Mark Barton and Katja Blomenkamp of Houston, Texas; and nephews, Andy and Casey Barton of Boulder and Wesley Barton of Houston.

Arrangements were entrusted to the Cremation Society of Alaska. An online guestbook may be signed at www.alaskacremation.com.