Joseph Winn Howard, who died March 2 at age 80, had an amused squint that suggested Roy Rogers, a natural association for the businessman who founded a nonprofit horsemanship-therapy program and ran a humanitarian-aid project for displaced Afghanistan civilians.
Howard was a lifelong athlete and a man whose deep faith remained solid even after his daughter, Melissa, died as a toddler in 1965. Childproof medicine caps had not yet been invented, and she had consumed a toxic amount of medication.
Following her death, Howard and his wife left their jobs as Young Life staffers and began teaching in the Los Angeles public school system. In 1970, the Howards were hired to teach in Littleton, where they established a rural home for themselves and their three sons.
During the summer, when school was out, Joe Howard started a custom haying and wheat combine business, hiring himself and his boys to neighboring ranchers. His sons preferred wheat combine work, which required only one pass through a field. Hay fields demanded three passes and the sweaty labor of bucking prickly, dusty bales of hay into a slow-moving truck.
Howard served for 10 years on the Douglas County school board. He and fellow members of the fraternal Civitan organization established Horsepower Inc., a nonprofit offering horse therapy to youngsters with disabilities.
Philanthropy became Howard’s avocation when he retired from teaching. He found the building site and negotiated the land purchase for Castle Rock’s New Hope Presbyterian Church and helped start a monthly men’s breakfast tradition there.
Perhaps his longest reach was establishing a program that collected, shipped and distributed humanitarian supplies for displaced residents of Afghanistan.
For five years, Howard and men in his church’s fellowship group directed caravans of trucks ferrying more than 100,000 pounds of supplies from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. From Peterson, C-141 Starlifter planes carried the supplies to Afghanistan, where Howard helped unpack them.
When Howard died, messages arrived from halfway around the world.
“I am sorry,” Najibulla Sedeqe e-mailed from Kabul. “We wish patience for his family, friends and say our condolence to them. We appreciate his help and support very much.”
“I remember all the legwork you and Kabul team did to carry his help,” wrote Shakila.
“What we remember from Joe is his kindness, his smile larger than life, his generosity and his vision about humanity,” wrote Wahid, Soraya, Sabrina, Haroun and Sulleimen Omar.
“When Joe found out we didn’t even have a car to operate in Afghanistan, he immediately sent us two cars, which are still functioning today in Kabul,” they wrote to Howard’s family.
“I will never forget the day when Joe was delivering boxes of humanitarian aid full of pencils,” Wahid Omar wrote in another message. “He had a bandage on his arm because he sprained his wrist, and when I suggested he should let us unload the truck, he said, ‘Oh, it’s not a big deal. My wrist will heal. We need to make sure Afghan kids have these pencils and notebooks soon.”
Howard is survived by his wife, Mary Ellen Mathers Howard of Castle Rock; sons Greg Howard of Louisville, Joe Howard Jr. of Castle Rock and Tim Howard of Monument; his brother, Nick Howard of Sunland, Calif.; and nine grandchildren. His daughter and one granddaughter preceded him in death.
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com
