Jack Gillespie of Pueblo was a cowboy for 18 years before he changed directions and became a geological engineer.
But for his final rites, the family made sure he was wearing his trademark Stetson hat, a wine-colored Pendleton shirt and cowboy boots.
Gillespie, who died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on Jan. 29 at age 79, didn’t like winter, so a celebration of his life will be held in June, when his favorite flower, the red peony, is in bloom. The family has labeled it a “kick the bucket” party, at his request.
Gillespie had Stetsons for summer and winter “and always liked to dress well,” said his daughter, Caltara Zoellner-Gillespie of Manitou Springs. “He was tall and thin, very graceful.” He loved to dance and collected reprints of Charlie Russell prints of Western art.
For years Gillespie worked for the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corp. and for the U.S. Geological Survey, finding mineral resources in several states.
Before his career was over, he worked in Somalia for a private company helping find places to drill for water.
There, he learned how to dodge camels and other wild animals and managed to communicate with the native people with the help of an interpreter and “some yelling and hand-waving,” said his wife, Miriam.
“He was a good geologist, a hard worker and very honest, and he didn’t like people who weren’t honest,” said a former engineering colleague, Jim Brooks of Pueblo.
Gillespie’s cowboy experiences never left him. His nephew Dennis Jones recalls Gillespie “trying to teach me how to rope calves when I was 4.”
The two of them worked for years to keep “the big cities” in Colorado from getting all the water from the Arkansas River. “He taught me a lot about appreciating natural resources,” Jones said.
Gillespie was a “strict” father and expected his kids to get good grades and do as they were told, said his daughter. “He wasn’t very tolerant of arguing.”
John Dwayne Gillespie was born in Penrose on Oct. 9, 1930, and graduated from high school there.
He became “the quintessential cowboy,” breaking horses, building fences, branding and shoeing horses on land that is now Pueblo West.
He was a production planner at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corp. before being drafted.
He was in the Army Criminal Investigation Division in Korea and later earned his geological engineering degree at the Colorado School of Mines.
He married Miriam Calhoun on Aug. 23, 1959.
In addition to her and his daughter, he is survived by his son, Cy Gillespie of Woodland Park, and two granddaughters.
