Donald Peter Trompeter

Don was born on April 16, 1924 to Peter J Trompeter II and Edna Loos Trompeter of Peru. He attended Saint Joseph elementary school and Saint Bede Academy high school before undergraduate studies at Northwestern University in Evanston. He graduated in late 1945 from Northwestern with a B.S. in Business Administration.

He was a baseball star from a young age, pitching shutouts in American Legion ball, in high school and in the Big Ten. He was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the early 1940's, but chose schooling and a career in business instead. In 2004 Don was inducted into the St. Bede Athletic Hall of Fame, an honor he cherished.

A veteran of WWII, Don completed his naval officer training at Harvard University, finishing at the top of his class. As a young officer he held the highest naval security clearance and was assigned to the Pacific Command in Hawaii where he was entrusted with coding and decoding classified communications in his role as a personal courier to Admiral Nimitz and his staff. News of the Enola Gay and the atomic bombing of Japan came first to him before ultimately being relayed to Nimitz himself.

Following his wartime service, Don returned to Northwestern to complete his degree. There he met recent Northwestern graduate Teresa "Terry" Scanlan, and in 1951 they married and moved to Peru to raise a family. Don assumed a key management position with Trompeter Construction Company - one of the cornerstone businesses in the community.

Founded in 1890 by his grandfather Peter J Trompeter, the company specialized in highway paving, heavy grading and concrete bridge construction, and was considered one of the leading paving companies in Illinois - a legacy that included the laying of many of the vintage brick streets in the Illinois Valley, major contributions to depression-era public works projects in the region, and construction of the Fourth Street Bridge connecting LaSalle and Peru. Vital to local life and prosperity, the company employed more than 100 men during busy work seasons, year after year for generations, and functioned as a kind of extended family. Don ultimately was president of the company for close to two decades, and in his role as a pillar of the community he served in the late 1960's as president of the LaSalle-Peru Township schoolboard.

Don and Terry's later years were spent splitting time between a rural retreat in Princeton, Illinois and winters in Deerfield Beach before settling in Florida permanently in 2000. Avid golfers, they were among the original members of Deercreek Country Club in the early 1980s.

Don is survived by his brother Raymond Trompeter of Peru; sons Tim Trompeter of New York and Dennis Trompeter of Kenilworth, IL; daughter Lynn Trompeter of Wauconda, IL; grandchildren Taylor Trompeter of Northbrook, IL and CeCe Trompeter of Deerfield Beach, FL; grandchildren Julian Trompeter and Elinore Trompeter of New York; greatgrandchildren Erynn Trompeter and Alexi James Keller of Northbrook, IL.

Don was preceded in death by his cherished wife of 59 years, Teresa S Trompeter (1926-2010), and his dear brother Ralph Trompeter of Phoenix, AZ (1927-1981).

Please address memorial contributions to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital http://www.stjude.org