Born at Goodhope, in Douglas County, Mo Rodrick Edgar Lethco, 60, passed from this life on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007, in El Camino Hospital, Mountain View, Calif., after a final battle with congestive heart failure and aspiration pneumonia.
Interment was in the Last Supper section at Fresno Memorial Gardens in California on Aug. 20.
Rod was born on June 28, 1947, at Goodhope, in Douglas County, Mo. He attended grade school at Goodhope and Plainview, then finished his education in California.
His parents, Clarence Edgar Lethco and Velma Jewell (Barnes) Lethco-Butler, and a stepfather Clarence Elmer Butler, preceded him in death.
Two children are Kevin Roderick Lethco, and Bonnie Lynn (Lethco) Sidsworth, her husband, Ken, and one granddaughter, Jennifer Sidsworth surviving in Fresno, Calif., and his former wife, Alice (Bryant) Lethco.
Also surviving are four sisters, Dora Jo Mahan, of Joplin, Lodena Marian McCoy, Mtn. Grove, Velma Fern Bennetts, Fresno, Calif., and Nancy Louise Fureby and husband, Duane, of Rocklin, Calif. Preceding him in death were Glenn McCoy, Stanley A. Bennetts and Archie T. Mahan.
Other survivors are nieces and nephews: Lodena’s children, Phillip Martin McCoy; Jane Ann Johnmeyer and husband, Bill; Mark Alan McCoy and wife, Shirley, Kristen, Kendall, and Keenan; Timothy Lynn McCoy, wife Anna, and Alexander; Dora Jo’s son, David Edward Mahan; and Nancy’s son, Jason Andrew Fureby.
Many cousins, relatives and a wealth of friends loved him unconditionally. Rod grew up in Christianity. He was baptized into the Church of Christ at an early age in Missouri, and loved the Lord above all.
Rod went to California at an early age, attending Selma and Watsonville elementary schools. Due to his mother’s failing health, he remained in Fresno with his two sisters, Fern and Nancy, then Fern and her husband, Stan, continued his up-bringing. He attended Cooper Junior High and Fresno High School, and became an associate of arts engineering major at Fresno City College.
In high school he played football; in college he played golf and became a certified scuba diver.
Interrupting his further education, he enlisted in the Air Force during the Vietnam era. His tour of duty was a civil engineering squadron at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Mont., where he worked with and maintained the Minuteman Missiles siloed at various sites on the base and around the area.
After the military, he worked for the Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation on the Central Valley Water Project which vitalized the west side of Fresno County. He worked on the Friant-Kern, and the huge water valves and pumps which took water through the mountains near Bakersfield into the Los Angeles basin. He also worked for Cal-Trans as an engineering technician.
