Jackie Bough

youngest of three children, an older brother Frank R. Bough III and an older sister Dottie L. Bough. He grew up in Roanoke, VA and later moved to Knoxville, TN. As a teenager he was very involved with the youth group of the United Methodist Church, where he became a Christian. He attended Central High School in Knoxville, TN and graduated in 1967. He joined the Navy in 1969 and was stationed at the Lemoore Naval Air Station in Lemoore, CA. During his time in California he met his future wife, Elizabeth Whitlock, at Greenhole in Three Rivers, CA. They were later married on July 2, 1971. During his time in the Navy he was an Aviation Electrician’s Mate Second Class and served on the USS Kittyhawk Aircraft Carrier during the end of the Vietnam War. He was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1974. Jackie took great pride in serving his country and continued to have a strong sense of patriotism throughout his life. Following the Navy he and his wife Elizabeth lived in Visalia, CA. Jackie attended the College of the Sequoias and then went on to attend California State University, Fresno where he graduated with his Bachelor’s of Science degree in Industrial Technology-Manufacturing Industries in 1978. Jackie and Elizabeth moved back to Knoxville, TN to be near his family. He took a job with Xerox Corporation as a Service Engineer. Jackie continued to work for Xerox for thirty three years, retiring in 2010. He took great pride in his work and enjoyed serving many businesses throughout the valley and the relationships he made among them. He and Elizabeth were blessed with two children. Angela Christina Bough was born on November 4, 1979 and Christopher Lee Bough was born on September 9, 1981. His career in Xerox brought him back to California in 1982, where they were eventually able to move back to Visalia closer to Elizabeth’s family.

Jackie had a profound love for the outdoors. He enjoyed hiking, fishing, hunting, and camping. He also

enjoyed participating in many activities with his children over the years. Jackie was very involved in the Boy Scout Troop 3302 with his son Chris, beginning in Cub Scouts all the way through Chris earning his Eagle Scout. Jackie loved adventure and shared this love with his family, spending many weekends camping in the mountains and at the ocean, as well as driving across the country exploring American while visiting friends and family. He loved to collect rocks from all over his travels. They were displayed around his home and shared with his wife, children and grandchildren through beautifully polished stones and jewelry that he made. He was very artistic and enjoyed drawing, creating beautiful stained glass art and writing. Jackie could build and fix anything. He loved working with his tools in the garage or his shop and designing and building countless projects. Over the last ten years of his life he also enjoyed being a grandfather and spending time with his three grandchildren who knew him as their loving and playful “Pappy Jackie.” Jackie was a great man, loved by all who knew him. He was a loving husband, father, brother, son, nephew, and Pappy. He was a strong example of hard work and dedication. He strived to do all things with enthusiasm and perfection. He had a joyful sense of humor and loved to play lighthearted jokes on those he loved. He brought many laughs and had a way of lifting the spirits of all those around him.

Jackie was preceded in death by his parents Frank R. Bough Jr. and Willma Bough, and his brother Frank R. Bough III. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, son Christopher, daughter Angie O’Neal, son-in-law Chris O’Neal and grandchildren, Addison, Rylee and Gavin O’Neal. He is also survived by his sister Dottie Ammons.

An outdoor celebration of life for Jackie Bough will be held at the Pavillion in the Visalia Cemetery on February 6, 2021 at 11:00 AM.

Eulogy presented by his children, Chris Bough and Angie O’Neal

Angie:

Hard work, honor, integrity, love for family: these are all qualities that our father not only held in high esteem, but practiced every day during his time here with us.

He had high expectations for himself and us, and always lived with a sense of adventure to explore and try new things, laugh and joke around, and just enjoy life.

Dad grew up in the country in Roanoke, Virginia where his love for the outdoors began. He loved to tell us of the countless hours he would run and explore in the surrounding forests with his older brother and sister. He looked up to them and worked hard as the youngest to make his mom and dad proud.

After high school he joined the Navy which took him on a new adventure out to California. Stationed in Lemoore, the mountains were just a short drive away. In the summer of 1970 he met mom at Greenhole in Three Rivers. She was there with her sister building a fire to cook hamburgers for lunch, when he hollered over from a nearby rock to tell them that you weren’t allowed to build a fire there. Mom, being a young independent 18 year old, decided of course to ignore him, and still cook their hamburgers over an open fire, but when she walked over later to talk to him she found him sitting on the rock and writing a poem in his journal about her, “Lady in Blue.” And so a new adventure had begun. A year later they were married, and they have remained married for what would have been 50 years this July. Dad loved mom and being her husband. As their children, it was a gift to watch their relationship and love grow and evolve into something even more beautiful as the years went by, as they retired, became grandparents, traveled the country on new adventures, and just shared the time that they had together with family, friends, and each other.

Chris:

Our father instilled the importance of hard work and a sense of service and duty in us from an early age. He was proud of his accomplishments. He loved America and everything it stands for. Anyone who knew him was aware of his strong sense of patriotic duty. He was proud of his time serving in the Navy, serving overseas on the USS Kittyhawk Aircraft Carrier during the end of the Vietnam War. Our father was a huge advocate for education and academic excellence. He loved to speak of his memories from school, his hard work, his favorite teachers and his good grades. He was proud of his work at Fresno State and earning his Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Technology-Manufacturing Industries. He also took great pride in the fact that both of his children followed in his footsteps in graduating from his alma mater at Fresno State. He always maintained his high expectations and belief in our ability to reach our goals. These virtues are what guided him through a successful career of 33 years working for Xerox as a Service Engineer. He loved his job servicing many businesses throughout the valley and the relationships he made along the way. But perhaps the accomplishment that he was most proud of was in raising my sister and I into the individuals that we have become today.

Angie:

Dad could build and fix anything. He loved tools and tinkering around in the garage or his shop. Over the years he designed and built countless projects. One of my fondest memories is the huge play structure he built for us in the backyard as young kids. It was amazing...two stories with a thatched roof made from our palm tree’s branches, with a slide, swings, sandbox, monkey bars, and a tire swing. We spent so much of our childhood outside playing on it. Dad actually built it twice. You see, it was built in our backyard next to the back fence, and being two stories high you could see all around and into the surrounding neighbors’ yards. And the neighbors behind us liked to be able to do what you’d call “skinny dipping” in their pool, so they built up this large fiberglass extension on their side of the fence to maintain their privacy. However, a couple years later we had a pool put in on that side of the yard, so dad tore the whole play structure apart and rebuilt it again with new improvements on the other side of the yard. And so the neighbors behind had to extend their privacy wall the whole length of the backyard. I remember my dad just smiling and finding humor in it. He didn’t let anything get in the way of his creative projects, and the fun adventures he created for us kids.

Dad loved to hunt. He enjoyed just getting up into the mountains and exploring, getting away, and close to nature. As a kid I have memories of him leaving for a week at a time each year to go deer hunting, and he never really came home with any deer, which made me feel good because as a child I didn’t want him to kill them. But I vividly remember him coming home from one trip and coming into the house to tell us to come out to the 4Runner to see what he had brought home. And sure enough there was a buck in the back of the 4Runner. My dad was so proud, and it honestly wasn’t as horrible as I had thought it would be. But, that was the only one he ever brought home. Every year, he just went bow and rifle hunting for the sport and enjoyment of it, and he always brought himself home, filled back up from his time away and his adventures in the mountains. It was his happy place.

Dad was a strong man and a protector. He always tried to plan ahead and be prepared for what was to come. In high school I remember telling him that I was going to try out for cheerleading and he told me, absolutely not, because cheerleaders had a “sort of reputation” and he didn’t want his sweet, hardworking, straight A little girl becoming a part of that. But once I made the squad and began to cheer and compete, while still working hard and maintaining good grades, dad realized that he didn’t need to worry anymore. You could always find him up in the stands at football games in his Ranger hat supporting me on the sidelines and my brother on the field. But, this didn’t mean he didn’t worry about other things. When boys started to come around he told me that any boy I was to date would need to sit down and have a talk with him first, which did happen, but he’d always make sure to coincidently be “cleaning his guns” when the boy arrived or make great mention of his gun collection. As a father he spent so many years worrying about me and protecting me. I can vividly remember the day I showed up at my parents’ house to tell them that Chris had proposed and that I was engaged. And he had the biggest smile and tears in his eyes and he hugged me so tight. He said he knew because Chris had already asked for his blessing. Over these last fourteen years he and my husband have built a great relationship, working together on building numerous projects, sharing an interest in guns, and just spending time together as family. Chris has turned out to be exactly the kind of man every father prays for his daughter to marry. My dad was proud of us and loved us so much.

Over these past ten years it has been a joy to see my dad as “Pappy Jackie” to his three grandchildren. He loved being a grandfather, snuggling with them on the couch, playing with them, and spoiling them. He enjoyed playing little jokes on them, just as he had done with us when I was a kid. If you were close to my dad, he tended to play lighthearted jokes on you at some time or another. For example if you got up from the table to go get something, he always had a way of making your cup or silverware disappear before you returned. It always brought a smile to my face watching him play out these same jokes on my own children as they would return in search of their cup of water and “Pappy” had no idea where it was. He’d make it reappear and they’d giggle or smile. He loved each of his grandchildren so much, and had the same high expectations and dreams for their futures. I remember him telling me after I graduated with my Master’s degree that he suspected that each generation would continue further on in their education, and that someday one of his grandchildren would graduate with their Doctorate.

Chris:

Our father was an avid outdoorsman with a profound love for nature. He loved spending time out in the wilderness hunting for deer and fishing for trout. As a child we would spend many weekends up at Lake Kaweah fishing. On one specific occasion I remember catching the limit for both of us and my father not catching any. As we were heading home for the day I said to my dad “Wow dad, you didn’t catch any!” He laughed and said that it was a good thing that I had caught enough for the both of us. Now that I am older, I look back on that day and realize how great an experience that truly was. What my father was doing was waiting until he saw a little nibble on his line, and he would encourage me to switch poles with him saying that he wasn’t having any luck. Sure enough, just after we would switch poles, the end of the rod would dip, and a fish would be on my line. He must have continued this the entire morning. Even afterward he never told me what he had done, but instead was happy to let me feel like I had triumphed that day as a young champion fisherman.

As my sister stated earlier, our father had a great sense of humor that oftentimes was a bit mischievous. As I grew up that sense of humor inevitably managed to rub off on me. I remember on our trip across the United States stopping at the Grand Canyon and walking around it as a family. I had looked over one of the edges and noticed a broad ledge a few feet below that was invisible from the path we were on. I nudged my dad and told him I was going to trick mom by pretending to slip off. He chuckled and motioned for me to go ahead. I wandered to the edge and pretended to lose my footing then dropped and crouched down so that I was unseen. My mother about had a heart attack until I popped up letting her know I was perfectly safe. My mom was rightfully upset, but my dad and I both laughed about that moment for quite some time.

As a boy my father had always wanted to join the Boy Scouts but sadly was unable to. When I showed interest in the Cub Scouts my parents were excited for the opportunity. They encouraged me to press onwards through the ranks and eventually join the local Boy Scout troop 302. Both of my parents and often my sister would be involved in our local troop’s activities. The troop was filled with wonderful parents that worked together to encourage each other’s children to climb through the ranks. It really was like an extended family. Weekends and summers were filled with so many adventures shared with my father and the troop. Summer camps at Camp Chawanakee, monthly camping expeditions, evening skits around campfires, hiking to remote locations, cave spelunking, white water rafting, and so much more. As a child they were the adventures of a lifetime, and my father was alongside me experiencing it all. I am thankful for those adventures and the profound love of nature that my father instilled in me.

Going into high school he encouraged me to try out for the Redwood Ranger freshman football team as a receiver. Both of my parents became avid supporters of the Redwood Ranger Football Boosters. My father and I would go to Plaza Park and practice. I would run receiver patterns and he would act as quarterback. On any given Friday night during high school football season, you would find my parents in the stands cheering on the team with the rest of the boosters. They would both be wearing redwood football shirts and my dad would be wearing his signature official park ranger hat. Depending on the intensity of the game, some hoarse voices may have followed the next day. I am thankful for my dad’s encouragement to join the team and the discipline that the sport instilled in me.

Through all the time periods in my life and the experiences that my father and I shared, some of the best memories I have to this day were sitting around a campfire with my family on camping trips or with the Boy Scouts on wilderness adventures. Within scouting there was always one ritual that was completed in order to bring each campfire to a close for the evening. The scouts would gather around the fire, and in unison they would sing a song called Scout Vespers. After the song was completed everyone would retire to their tents for the evening. It seems only suiting that those reverent words be recited again today. The lyrics read as follows.

Softly falls the light of day,

While our campfire fades away.

Silently each Scout should ask

Have I done my daily task?

Have I kept my honor bright?

Can I guiltless sleep tonight?

Have I done, and have I dared

Everything to be prepared?

Listen Lord, oh listen Lord,

As I whisper soft and low.

Bless my mom and Bless my dad,

These are things that they should know.

I will keep my honor Bright,

The oath and law will be my guide.

And mom and dad this you should know,

Deep in my heart I love you so.

I love you dad and I will miss you dearly, but I know that you are in a better place and someday we will meet again. Until that day I will continue to honor your memory and your legacy.

Angie:

Dad, we are so thankful for the gift of time that we had together and the love that we shared. We miss you so much. But we find comfort and peace in knowing that you are with Jesus. May you run free through the green fields of heaven, hike through lush forests, dive off cliffs into deep lakes and cast your line into still waters with Jesus by your side. Someday we’ll join you there in new adventures, but until then, we’ll continue to walk alongside each other here, with your memories in our hearts and your legacy lived out in our lives.