Ron died at 12:45 p.m. at Georgetown Hospital, with his wife, Mary Froning in attendance. Ron was a Navy veteran and a graduate of Sioux Falls College. He was born in Washington, D.C., but lived around the world as a Navy “brat” and while he served on a destroyer in the Navy. He joined the Navy at 17 years of age; his ship helped turn back the Soviet warships carrying missiles to Cuba in 1962. He also spent time as a civilian helicopter dispatcher in Vietnam. He worked as a salesman and with a nonprofit serving the developmentally disabled. But he spent most of his working years with the Federal government, including the Office of Personnel Management, the Equal Opportunity Commission, and the Civil Rights Office of the Environment Protection Agency (from which he retired in 2010). He never stopped being a great fan of his boyhood teams—the USC Trojans and the NY Yankees. He is survived by his wife of 41 years and his beloved daughter, Lauren. Services will be held at a later date at Arlington National Cemetery. Donations in his name would be welcome at The Purple Heart Foundation, an organization serving our veterans.
