John Burton Moore
January 6, 1927 - December 2, 2012
John Burton Moore was born on January 6, 1927, in Contra Costa County, California. His father Hal was a dairyman and his mother Lorraine was a "beauty operator" who later owned two beauty shops.

John's early memories of growing up during the Great Depression include being the only child in his school wearing shoes, milk delivery bills paid with Russian diamonds, and floating the irrigation canals of his uncle's farm. He graduated from the Elsinore Naval and Military School at age 16.

Army Private Moore never served overseas during WWII, having been injured in boot camp. He was treated in Chicago and then sent to New York with the USO. He worked at Grand Central Station handing out tickets, keeping the very best for his own dates and bringing back stories of concerts, theater, and ball games to last the rest of his life.

Moore attended Stanford University earning a degree in Theater Arts having performed in several plays and directing others. His theater career took him throughout Northern California, from the Music Circus in Sacramento, to Berkeley with the Company of the Golden Hind, and soon his own company in Richmond, the Masquers. It was at this time he married the former Karen Lagergren, and they had three children, Candace, Molly and John Jr.

A career opportunity with State Farm Insurance brought their young family to Portland, Oregon. After training he was assigned to North Bend and the family moved to Coquille. When friends and neighbors liked their idea of establishing a local community theater, John and Karen led a road trip in 1966 to Drytown, California, to visit the Claypipers summer theater, performing melodramas and song and dance routines called olios.

The result was the Sawdust Theater in Coquille, still going strong after 46 years. Moore wrote several plays, directed, and acted parts of both hero and villain. A few of those plays were Drusilla of the Gold Country; Five Fast Friends Foil a Fiend, Tricked at the Trestle, and Taken Down the Garden Path. He also took a roles at the Little Theater on the Bay in North Bend, playing Captain Keller in the Miracle Worker and Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls.

John's theater manager skills were fully realized in working for the State of Oregon Department of Employment, first as a job counselor in Coos Bay, then on loan to the federal government in Seattle. He met Meda Lovell in Coos Bay and they created a blended family that included her three children Douglas, Marilyn and Lloyd. They lived in Newport when he managed the state office in Toledo, and then in Eugene where he hit his stride, becoming a much loved captain of that ship. He finished his career with the State of Oregon as manager of the Medford Employment Department.

He was a Mason, a Shriner, marched in parades as a Shrine clown and served on the Board of Trustees for the Shriner's Children's Hospital of Northern California. He was the Grand Orator for the Grand Lodge of Oregon twice, in 1997 and 2001, and was Potentate for the Hillah Shrine in 2004. In retirement he worked steadily on three novels and enjoyed travel and cruises with Meda, often to Mexico.

As a cadet at the Elsinor Army and Navy Military Academy in California.

John Moore was Potentate of the Hillah Shriners region of Southern Oregon and Northern California in 2005 when he was 78 years old.