James Russell Spangler

A celebration of the life of long-time Alaskan James Russell (Jim) Spangler will be held from 1-3 p.m. Saturday, September 22 at 228 S. Conestoga Loop, Palmer, Alaska. He passed away peacefully in his sleep on August 12, 2018 of complications following a stroke.

The son of Edward and Louise Spangler, he was born September 21, 1937, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. In 1958 he travelled west to Oregon on his Harley Davidson motorcycle where he began for the U. S. Forest Service.

He married Sharon Marie White of Gilchrist, Oregon, on March 6, 1960.

He graduated from Oregon Technical Institute with a degree in Land Surveying in May, 1968 and set off up the Alcan to Alaska with his wife and three young sons to go to work for the Bureau of Land Management. They lived in a trailer in Fairbanks for one winter then transferred to South Central, taking up residence in Chugiak where a fourth son was born in 1972. He opened Spangler Surveying Services in 1972 and operated it for the next 40 years.

In 1989 he and his wife moved to Palmer where he took a position with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, performing surveying and road inspections throughout the Valley until he retired in 2006.

Mr. Spangler served in leadership roles of the Valley Chapter of the Alaska Society of Professional Land Surveyors. He was a member of the Mat-Su Borough Platting Board. An avid hunter, he was a member of the National Rifle Association and Ducks Unlimited.

Surviving are his wife Sharon; his brother Robert of La Crosse; four sons, Michael and wife Sherri of Anchorage, Anthony (Tony) of Bethel, Randall (Randy) and wife Caroline of Wasilla, and Bryan and wife Dawn of Wasilla. He has ten grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents and brothers John, Stanley, and Donald and a sister, Virginia Williams.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions be made to the Alaska Society of Professional Land Surveyors Scholarship Fund.