Everett L. West
January 7, 1936 – January 22, 2024
Everett Leroy West was born to Everett and Beulah West during the harsh winter of 1936 in Burlington Junction, Iowa. His family, though poor, moved around various small towns between Iowa and Missouri. After graduating from Parnell High School, Everett joined the United States Navy in 1956. Two years later, Everett received his honorable discharge, saying later he would have stayed in if they would have guaranteed a deployment in the Atlantic after the one in the Pacific. He served on the USS Roanoke CL 145, a highly decorated ship, as a supply clerk.
After a couple of years in college at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, then called Omaha University, he joined the Dugdale Construction Company as a laborer. Meeting the love of his life, Loretta Hough, through their mutual friends Richard and Janice Messner, Everett was married in September 1961. Shortly thereafter, he had a new house built in a cornfield on the outskirts of Omaha at the time.
In 1968, Everett and Loretta decided to adopt a baby boy from the Nebraska Children’s Home whom they named David Douglas. They decided to not adopt any further children when a benign brain tumor was found in Loretta.
Through the years, Everett’s role in Dugdale Construction increased until Don Goebel and he were brought in as partners by former Douglas County Commissioner Richard Dugdale, forming a new company called Dugdale and Associates. This company lasted until 1994 when the partners retired so that Everett could take care of Loretta, who had been stricken with an advanced case of osteoporosis.
For ten years, Everett took care of Loretta until June 2004 when Loretta passed from the brain tumor. Everett had plans to travel the world but now took those trips with his son, David. Thanks to investment advisor Roland Manarin, Everett and David took trips to Italy and Central Europe, in addition to trips around the United States and cruises to the Baltics, England, Ireland, France, and Alaska.
In 2021, as he was visiting David and his wife, Christine Shielo, he assisted in caring for Brianna-Cate Johnson, the 18-month-old daughter of Christine’s cousin and David’s best friend, both of whom had been killed in a car accident. The two bonded, and though not official, Brianna-Cate called him her grandpa.
Two weeks after his 88th birthday, Everett developed pneumonia and was taken to Methodist Hospital in Omaha. Sunday morning, his heart stopped for almost five minutes before it was restarted by emergency personnel. However, a chronic lung disease combined with pneumonia and heart failure proved too much and Everett Leroy West passed away on January 22, 2024, at the age of 88.
Everett is survived by his son, David Douglas West, and wife, Christine Shielo West of Alliance, Nebraska; his sister, LaRue Helen Burns of Sheridan, Missouri; and her son and Everett’s nephew, Donald Leroy Burns of Charlotte, North Carolina. Brianna-Cate Johnson has a court date of March 4, 2024, for her adoption by David and Christine. They had hoped Everett could attend.
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