Scott T Gibbs

I rhink a few brief words are in order about my friend Mark Popp.  I don't know if he would fully agree with these words but they are as I remember what happened over all the years we stayed friends.

I was one of Mark's friends in high school, maybe because his brother, Craig (Mead 66), was my brother Tim's ( Mead 66) friend.  You may remember Mark was one of the football team managers when we were seniors and maybe even before that, I don't remember.  I do remember we lost one of the last games of the season when we were senoirs to West Valley because Bob Holcomb managed to kick a fumble out of bounds in the fog at West Valley, but that's another story.

The fall after we graduated from Mead in 1965, his mother took us to the Greyhound Bus Depot in Spokane to leave home for the University of Washington.in Seattle. She gave him cab fare to get us from the bus depot in Seattle to the dorm at UW.  We made more than one trip on the Greyhound back and forth till my Dad bought me a white1960 Chevrolet Belair 4 door.  I think I still own Mark's brother Craig the $10 he came up with to get us out of a ditch on Snoqualie Pass in a snow storm.

I was Mark's roommate at the University of Washington when we were freshman and sophomores in mechanical engineering.  He was a good roommate and we played a lot of pinochle with the other guys we met in the dorm.  I never saw him take a drink, which I can't say about any of my other friends, past or present.  He had a collection of super balls, that bounced around the room, and he taught himself to yodel while listening to country music.  When we moved out of the dorm, he moved to a converted garage and decided he would sleep and go to school in the day and study at night.  What can I say, it worked for him, but I didn't see a lor of him those couple of years.  He had a watch that got a signal from a satellite to keep it within a 1/4 second of the correct time.

When we graduated in 1969 with BSME degrees, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and spent a year in Viet Nam changing light bulbs at Tam Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon.  Even the Marine Corps figured out Mark was a free thinker that wouldn't do well in combat.

Returning to Spokane after Viet Nam, he worked for American Sign and Indicator Company (professional sports scored boards) till they went broke.  He moved to Seattle, found another converted garage, and lived for many years following various hobbies and past times but never finding another job.  I asked him why he never found another job and he said looking for a job was something he was always able to put off till tomorrow,.

He died in Spokane, after returning to his Mother's home, at 58 years old, after a long battle with collon cancer.  His Mom and brothers and sisters spread his ashes at the big pine tree near his mother's home where he grew up on Peon Creek near the Little Spokane River.

I hope he would not object to my comments but I doubt it.  He was my good friend and I still miss him,

Scott Gibbs

James K Bartholomew

In the summer of ’69 I was living in Long Beach, California.  Mark had joined the Marines after college and was in the area one weekend.  I assume he tracked me down through our parents.  He called me and said he wanted to come over and “shoot the sh*t”, as he put it.  He came over on a Saturday afternoon.  We ate some KFC in my apartment and drank a little beer.  We drove around Long Beach and went to the drag races at Lions in the evening.  I remember driving by a car dealership and we stopped to look at one of those winged Dodge Chargers on the lot.  Mark said something to the effect that it was a little too flashy for him.  A few years later Mark was working at American Sign & Indicator in Spokane.  He introduced me to another company for the purpose of possible employment.  Those are the only two times I recall crossing paths with Mark after high school.  I was living on the coast when I heard he was sick.  I wanted to visit him one more time but he passed away before I could.  I visited his mother not long after he died.  Mrs. Popp said Mark was not up to having visitors by the time I heard he was sick.  She said Mark was sitting on the couch one day with his eyes closed and said, “I never realized how much energy it takes to keep your eyes open”.  Mrs. Popp suggested to Mark that he give the situation to God.  Mark said that he had. 

Samantha Gai Chamberlain (Kostelecky)

I don't remember Mark at all but really enjoyed reading the nice tributes of him by you two. That was great reading.