BARBARA JEAN BENEDICT
Barbara Jean Benedict, age 69, of Oak Harbor, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, December 20, 2011, after a short illness. She was born on October 11, 1942, in Norfolk, VA, to Harold & Marguerite Benedict.
In 1958 Harold brought his family to Oak Harbor, Whidbey Island, to finish out his last years of Navy service. When they arrived it was Barbara’s last year of high school, graduating in 1960. After graduation she spent some time at Skagit Valley College in Mt. Vernon, where the highlight of her education was learning to play hearts in the student lounge, with several others from Oak Harbor who shall remain nameless!
Barbara was an adventurous person who did not hesitate to leave Washington with 3 friends and went to Los Angeles to work. She had several jobs in L.A. and roomed with her friends from Bow, WA and Bellingham WA. At one time 13 residents from Oak Harbor & general area lived within 10 miles of each other and weekend’s gatherings were like still being on the Island. She eventually came home and began working for Shell Oil, Anacortes, WA in 1980. After retiring from Shell she went to work for Tesoro Oil and eventually retired from there also. Barbara could not sit still for long and began a part time job at Land Title. She was surprised they paid her - as she “appeared” to some to be the roving ambassador for the local company, each day going all over town to the various banks & title companies collecting data. She was well known all over town and we think her favorite place to visit was Whidbey Island Bank on Fridays – for cookies!
At the age of 50 Barbara decided to take up skiing. Her first skiing trip was to Europe with friends took her to Switzerland, Italy and Copenhagen. She loved to talk about the trip and through the years continued skiing at Silver Star Canada with two of her work pals, Renee & Diane, plus others. When she could no longer ski she continued the adventure every January with them and went snowmobiling instead of skiing! What a gal!
Through all the above years Barbara was an avid dog lover – she raised & showed Afghan hounds even going to Westminster Dog Show in New York once. After years with the Afghans she sold them or gave to loving homes and she and her sister moved into town, built new homes next to each other. By then her Dad had passed & Mom lived with Barbara. Barbara enjoyed that because Mom did all the cooking!
After a short while in the new homes she settled on another dog called SODO MOJO. He is a Bichon Friese, now 10 years old. He misses his Mom very much!
Barbara was an active member of Sunrise Rotary, served on the board of the YMCA Services organization & was a member at one time of the Chamber of Commerce.
Barbara leaves behind her sister, Linda Bulpin (William) and brother Harold “Ben” Benedict (Cathy), all of Oak Harbor; two nephews, Kevin G. Tinker (Terri)of Kirkland and Garrett Benedict of Oak Harbor; one great-niece, Teisha Tinker, of Nampa, ID. She also has many East Coast cousins who share the loss of her passing.

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