A memorial service for JohnD Nevers Winters, 97, a fourth-generation Nevadan, will be 2 p.m. April 18, at the Silver Oak Golf Club, 1251 Country Club Drive, in the Coaches Room.
Mr. Winters died March 30, 2007. He was born May 18, 1909, to Ira and Mary Kearney Winters. He attended Carson City schools and graduated with a degree in agriculture from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1932. He was affiliated with Sigma Alpha Epsilon and was a member of UNR's varsity boxing team.
He worked for the Nevada State Highway Department from 1932-33 and then became an agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Soil Conservation Services for five years. He then joined Sanitary Dairy, the family business in Carson City. He moved to Dayton in 1965.
He was the owner of the Santa Maria Ranch and the Ophir Mill Ranch in Dayton. His great-grandfather, John Devers Winters, moved from California to Nevada in 1854 and settled in Washoe Valley with sons Theodore, John D. Jr. and Joseph. His grandfather originally owned the Ophir Mine in Virginia City, and had run for governor in 1866. His father was an assemblyman and state senator for Carson City (OrmsbyCounty) from 1929-41, and was a lifelong Carson City rancher.
Mr. Winters was a member of the Carson City Rotary Club from 1945-65, and helped establish Carson-Tahoe Hospital, where he served as a board member. He co-chaired the Native Nevadans Committee of the 1964 Nevada Centennial and participated as rider No. 29E in the re-enactment of the Pony Express in 1960. He had served on the Nevada-California Interstate Commission since 1958, being appointed by Gov. Grant Sawyer and reappointed by every governor since. He was a proponent of water resource conservation and served on the Carson-Truckee Water Conservation Board. He donated land to the Carson City School District in 1954 and also gave land that eventually became the Carson Eagle Valley Golf Course. He served as an advisory board member of Western Nevada Community College.
Mr. Winters was the Grand Marshal of the Nevada Day Parade in 1995, and was recently honored by the city with the renaming of Centennial Park into JohnD Winters Centennial Park.
He was preceded in death by sisters Elizabeth Winters, Ina Winters Wilson, Fay Winters Hartung and grandson Scott King.
Among his survivors are his wife of 59 years of Dayton; daughters Marianne Winters, Sheila Winters Ward and Kathleen Pozzi Gerber, all of Carson City, and Vernalee Winters Correa of Redmond, Wash.; son Bruce Pozzi of Anchorage, Alaska; 14 grandchildren; 23 great-grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews.
Memorial donations may be made to the JohnD Winters Family Scholarship Endowment, University of Nevada, Reno Foundation, Mail stop 162, Reno, NV, 89557; St. Mary's Hospice, 18653 Wedge Parkway, Reno, NV, 89511; Carson Tahoe Regional Healthcare Foundation, Cancer Center, P.O. Box 2168, Carson City, NV, 89702, or a charity of choice.
FitzHenry's Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.