LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Ed Dutcher, a man who loved life, passed away early the morning of April 6, 2015.

He was always an early riser. He loved logging, hunting, fishing and playing cards, but most of all he loved his family.

Born November 27, 1927, to Oscar and Clara Dutcher, he spent his early years in the Lakeport area and then moved to Upper Lake when he was in the fourth grade.

He graduated from Upper Lake High School just in time to be drafted into the Army and sent to occupied Japan at the end of World War II. While in the Army he trained to be a paratrooper.

After the service he went to college at Oregon State to study forestry. When he decided that wasn’t for him he began logging, which he loved, and there he met Shirley Cole, who was to become his wife and with whom he spent the next 65 years. Then it was back to Lake County where he logged until he was 72.

Ed was known for his honesty, hard work and care of the land. He was known to say, “Don’t run over those young trees, I might want to come back and log here again sometime.”

The California Forestry Department named him Northern California’s second best logger because of that. He was always the first guy on the job site in the morning, and the last to leave at night.

Spare time was spent hunting, fishing and playing cards. In his later years fishing became his main hobby. He joined the Derby Hat Club in 1993, and some of his favorite adventures were spent in a small boat on Howards Prairie in Oregon with some of his closest friends.

His health finally kept him from making the trips, but he never stopped considering himself one of the Derby Hat family.

Ed is survived by his loving wife, Shirley; two sons, Bobby (Nanette) and Dave; and five grandchildren, Briana, Lindsey, Michael, Steven and Samantha.

Visitation will be held at Chapel of the Lakes Friday, April 10, from noon until 2 p.m. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 11, at Chapel of the Lakes Mortuary, 1625 High St. in Lakeport, with burial to follow at Upper Lake Cemetery, 780 Clover Valley Road.

If you would like to do something in Ed’s memory, take a kid fishing, you’ll never regret it.

For further information call Chapel of the Lakes Mortuary at 707-263-0357 or 707-994-5611, or visit www.chapelofthelakes.com .