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The memorial services celebrating and honoring the life of James Wallace Smith, Jr. 76, of Waukomis, will be held privately. Complete cremation care and services are under the direction of Brown-Cummings, A life celebration home.
James was born September 11, 1948, to James Wallace Sr. and Dorothy May Smith in Seattle, Washington. He lived a rich and full life, passing October 7, 2024, in Waukomis, Oklahoma.
He was raised and educated in Palmer, Alaska, then enlisted in the United States Navy at the age of 17. By 1969, after three years and two tours in Vietnam serving in the boiler room of the Destroyer Class ship, the Arnold J Isabell, he was honorably discharged to return home.
He returned to Palmer, Alaska and began a lustrous and skillful life of work and entrepreneurial mastery. Starting in heavy civil construction, he excelled as a general and heavy duty mechanic. He quickly worked his way up to Master Mechanic, even achieving an early retirement from the local 302 union in the early 1980’s. He owned and operated a number of lucrative business ventures in the 1980’s that included gold mining, roofing and spray foam insulation. He was a man of all trades, and rapidly mastered most; mechanical, dirt work, landscaping, engineering, foundation, carpentry, plumbing, heating, electrical and finish work. He mastered the real application skills of loadbearing, mechanical engineering, estimating and problem solving. In the 1990’s he started Advanced Signs and Striping bidding and performing almost all things subcontracted within heavy civil state and highway work except the paving and dirt work, and could realistically consult on those items, too. Again, looking to retire, he sold his interests in government contracting in the early 2000’s, but then started a new gardening center, J n B Greenhouse. He loved giving direction and was a natural salesman, so commercial greenhouse veggie and flower growth and sales to local individuals and organizations was an inviting challenge for almost a dozen years. During his time in Alaska he built 10 greenhouses and almost 20 homes in the Matanuska Valley. He was great at figuring things out and becoming an expert quickly.
By 2018, he decided to move to a warmer climate and headed south, first Arizona then even further to Oklahoma, where he continued building properties, loving his dogs and demonstrating his strong personality from his home in Waukomis. In his spare time he had spent a lifetime raising and breeding dogs and horses, and loved hunting moose, deer and Dall sheep. He liked fishing, boating, and he loved flying his airplane and driving his skid steer.
By his final rest he had spent a lifetime working hard and playing hard. He was truly a renaissance man.
He survived in life by his wife of 52years Beverly Smith, of the home and two daughters Sandy and Ryan Belden of Enid, Oklahoma, and Jamie and Ron Axtell of Wasilla, Alaska, and a multitude of grandchildren, Stephen, Austin, Skylar, Emily, Eric, Caleb, and Gene, and his two sisters Linda and John Phillips of Pahoa, Hawaii and Sharon and John Cowls of Hope, Alaska.
Condolences and special memories may be shared with the family online at WWW.BrownCummings.com.
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