Poster painter once protected President Kennedy

PALMER — John McOmber has been painting, off and on, for 30 years.

“I was working all the time so I wasn’t painting full-time. It was just more of a hobby,” McOmber said. “Now that I’m retired I’m trying to make it a full-time business. That’s what I tell my wife anyway. She says, ‘You just love to play don’t you?’ I say, ‘I’m not playing, I’m working.’”

McOmber, whose “Willows of Alaska” studio is on Knik River Road in the Butte, was one of 11 artists who submitted work to the Mat-Su Borough in the third installment of its annual poster contest.

The borough picks one of its projects each year — the last two were the Palmer Hay Flats and the M/V Susitna ice-breaking ferry — and solicits depictions of them from local artist and photographers. This year’s project was the Nordic ski trails at Hatcher Pass.

On July 7, the borough announced McOmber had won the contest and the accompanying $1,500 prize.

“I was surprised when I got chosen,” he said. “It’s good for me and it’s good experience. The borough needs a lot of credit because it helps promote the local artist.”

McOmber said someone he knows at Madd Matters store urged him to enter but he wound up with very little turnaround time — just six days to finish the painting by the May 25 deadline. He had to work so fast that he couldn’t do the whole thing in slow-drying oil paints and had to finish up the bottom with acrylics. Which, he joked, means the painting was mixed-media.

“This is a first for me,” he said, laughing.

The winning entry depicts a sweeping view of the Valley and, in particular, Pioneer Peak as seen from Hatcher Pass. At the bottom are three skiers in the middle of a race. Each wears colors of a local high school — Palmer blue, Colony green and Wasilla red.

“Everybody said, ‘Who are you going to put in first (place)?’” McOmber said. “I kind of put Palmer almost at the rear.”

But that wasn’t any kind of statement, just an artistic choice

“The reason I put him in the rear is I wanted to put more detail into his outfit which has snowflakes on the pants and so forth,” he said.

McOmber said he first gained some recognition as an artist at in 1976.

“I had put in a piece at the southeast Alaska state fair at the fine arts booth and then that piece sold for $5,000. I’m going, ‘Oh my goodness,’ because I’d never sold anything for more than $200, $250.”

In a press release the borough said he won a people’s choice award in that exhibit and took first place in the 2007 Juneau Art Festival. McOmber said he plans on entering more contests. He’s working on one for the Alaska Railroad’s annual poster contest.

But when he wasn’t painting McOmber was working. Don’t ask him what he did for a living unless you have some time to spare — McOmber’s done a lot. He’s been a heavy equipment operator, engineer, logger, policeman, farmer, rancher and commercial diver.

“There was a little tugboat they used to push the trees around with in Haines and that thing used to sink every year,” McOmber said. He would dive to where it sank and begin the process of re-floating it. “We’d drag it to shore, drain the water out.”

He said he began his diving career at around the time the movie “Jaws” came out. The iconic song from that movie would sometimes play in his head as he dove and he’d often mistake a boulder or other debris for the movie’s killer shark.

“Many times my heart would leap into my throat,” he said.

Prior to all of those careers, McOmber was in the Marine Corps, and it was there that he was assigned to guard President John F. Kennedy as he toured naval vessels in the South Pacific.

“I was handpicked along with some other Marines I guess because we polish our shoes the best, I don’t know, to guard President Kennedy when he did his tour of the 7th Fleet,” he said.

One night, standing guard outside the president’s stateroom, McOmber said Kennedy opened the door and told him he wanted a screwdriver.

“I had a phone right there and I called for the steward,” McOmber said. “I said, ‘The president wants a screwdriver.’ He says, ‘It’s 2:30 in the morning and he wants a drink?’”

McOmber said he asked JFK what kind of screwdriver he wanted and the president answered “Phillips head.” He needed it to clean out the air conditioning vent in his room. McOmber said he offered to get someone in to do the work.

“‘Oh, I’ll fix it,’” came the reply. “He says, ‘You know I used to be in the Navy.’”

While the president pulled out dust and gunk that was blocking the airflow, McOmber worried the debris in the air would dirty his neatly kempt uniform. The president had less to worry about in that regard. He was in his pajamas.

“I think he thought it was fun to do something for himself,” McOmber said.

Later, they shared a cup of coffee and talked about their plans for the future. McOmber said Kennedy told him he wanted to go back to practicing law after he was done being president. McOmber had different plans

“I want(ed) to buy a ranch. That was always my goal until I got one and then I said, ‘Oh this isn’t for me,’” he said.

Cowboys spend most of their time mending fences rather than riding horses, he said.

McOmber spent most of his Alaska years in Southeast. When his mother took ill, he left to care for her in Oregon and took up teaching at a community college. She died in 2006 and in 2007 he moved back to Alaska. He said he found his place on the Knik River on the Internet and thought it was perfect.

He lives in the shadow of Pioneer Peak, which features prominently in his winning poster.

“I see it in so many different ways,” he said. “I think that’s one mountain that has more faces than any other that I’ve observed.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.