Jan. 21, 1936 — Nov. 14, 2008

Dean Robert Truscott of Corvallis died Nov. 14 at the family home. Truscott lived in Medford from 1967 until October 2006, when with his wife, Susanne “Susie,” he moved to Corvallis to undertake remodeling and additions to the home that had been in Susie’s mother’s family for generations.

A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 21, at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 2000 Oakwood Drive in Medford. Truscott died of complications from lung cancer discovered about nine months ago.

In the early 1970s, he served on the Medford City Council, and was a candidate for mayor in 1974. A charismatic mail carrier, the late S.J. “Benny” Fagone, entered the race as a write-in and won. Truscott often quipped that he ran in a two-person election contest “and came out third.”

Dean Truscott was born Jan. 21, 1936, in Binford, N.D., with his grandfather, Joseph Truscott, a doctor for the Burlington Northern Railroad, handling delivery at the

Truscott home. He was the only child of Robert LeRoy and Eva Retzlaff Truscott, who ran a grocery store, first in Williston, N.D., and starting in 1942 in Bismarck, N.D. There’s a family story that at age 6, shortly after the move to Bismarck, young Dean took apart a roller skate and created his own skateboard, launching a curiosity for things mechanical and indicating a talent for building. His parents knew for sure at age 9, when their son removed his own braces just hours after they had been installed by the orthodontist.

He graduated from Bismarck High and went to college in Colorado, eventually graduating from University of Denver in hotel management.

After several years managing hotel properties, Truscott took a position with International Business Machines Corp. in office support. He met Susie in Denver. They married in Corvallis on June, 14, 1964. The couple moved in 1966 to Salem, where Truscott joined the IBM sales staff. The company transferred him to Medford in 1967.

Truscott placed IBM Selectric typewriters with hundreds of business and government customers in Southern Oregon, gaining a reputation for consulting and service, and for arriving at sales calls in an orange Porsche, often sporting a hand-tied bowtie as part of his IBM sales “uniform.” The Porsche was one of many German cars Truscott owned over the years, starting with a 1954 Volkswagen, said to be the first VW sold in North Dakota.

Truscott was a founding member of the Medford Rogue Rotary Club. In 1991 he was part of a Medford delegation that on behalf of Rotary International launched a Rotary Club in Torun, Poland. He and Susie returned to Torun for an extended time in 1992 while Truscott consulted with local business people on Western business practices. He was a member of Rogue Valley University Club.

After retiring from IBM, he operated a Medford office supply company for many years and held a variety of sales positions. Truscott liked to travel, build things and design landscaping. As a deacon at Westminster Presbyterian, he led a volunteer team that installed the original landscaping on the six-acre church campus in east Medford. He listed hiking in the canyons of the upper Rogue Basin as one of his favorite activities, and learned woodworking and carving.

Among his notable investments was a classic Rolls Royce “shooting brake,” an early-day wood station wagon. He imported the vehicle from London, restored all the woodwork and mechanical system, selling the Rolls to a Hawaiian investor and collector.

Truscott loved playing gin rummy with his children, grandchildren and good friends. He was an expert, but occasionally got beat by his wife. He loved to share a glass of wine and chat with friends, and complained after the chemotherapy began that the real drawback was “no longer being able to drink red wine” as visitors came to the Corvallis house.

Truscott was serving as general contractor and finish carpenter on the home at the time the cancer was discovered. He supervised landscaping and completion of much of the project in between rounds of treatment for his cancer.

Survivors include his wife, Susanne Moore Truscott, of Corvallis; daughter Desiree

Truscott Manning and husband, Michael, and their son, William, of Minneapolis, Minn.; daughter Sharee

Truscott Huus and husband, Todd, and their daughter, Chantal, of Minneapolis, Minn.; son Robert Truscott and wife, Susan, and their son, Marc, of Houston, Texas; and daughter Laurie Truscott Allbright and husband, Steven, and their children Bradley, Reed and Kaelyn of Bothell, Wash.

Memorial donations may be made to Corvallis Rotary Club, c/o Robert Reed, 2210 N.W. Robin Hood Drive, Corvallis, OR 97330; Medford Rogue Rotary Foundation, c/o Linda Evans, 4240 Cherry Lane, Medford, OR 97504; or The Albany Brass Ring Historical Carousel and Museum, P.O. Box 965, Albany, OR 97321 (Web site www.albanybrassring.com)

DeMoss-Durden Funeral Home of Corvallis handled arrangements.