James Melburn Dalton

June 17, 1942 – Feb. 1, 2020

James Melburn Dalton, a beloved teacher, coach, athlete, church leader, husband, brother, father, grandfather and devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died Feb. 1, 2020.

Jim died of respiratory failure at a hospital in Henderson, Nev., where his wife of 30 years, Judith Dalton, had spent the previous five months by his bedside after he suffered a stroke.

Jim spread his warmth, wisdom and wit through thousands of lives as a star basketball player in his native Wyoming; missionary in Los Angeles; teacher of history, government and English; coach of football, track and tennis at Cedar High School in Utah and Rosemead and Mountain View high schools in California; and happy retiree in Henderson.

The son of Maida (nee Welch) and Melburn Dalton, descendants of Mormon pioneers, Jim was born on June 17, 1942, in Cowley, the youngest of three brothers. He had a happy and adventurous childhood, surviving two accidental shootings before he was 18, stories he delighted in retelling.

At Cowley High he played clarinet and sang in choir with his strong tenor voice. He was elected student body president, played quarterback on the football team and leaped his way to the state high-jump championship in track and field.

But basketball was his true athletic love. Standing 6-foot-5, wearing number 24 and sporting a flattop, he was a dominant force on the court, leading the tiny Cowley Jaguars, who played in a log cabin gym, to a state championship in his sophomore year. He was recruited by colleges around the West, opting to play for the University of Wyoming in Laramie. He would become a starter on the elite NCAA team by the end of his sophomore year, but then heard a different calling.

A renewal of faith sent him on a mission for the LDS church when he was 20. He served in the California-Los Angeles mission in the early 1960s, spreading church teachings, finding converts and meeting his first wife, Cheery Lila Cluff, daughter of a local bishop.

He and Cheery married while students at Brigham Young University and had five children. Jim earned his degree in geography, the first in his family to graduate from college, and became a teacher of social studies in Wyoming and then Los Angeles.

In 1977, he was hired as head football coach at Cedar High, but soon settled into a happier life as a middle school teacher. Cedar Middle School had bought its first computer, an Apple II, and he became its primary user, writing software that schools would buy for their lunch programs and writing games for students in his computer classes.

He returned in 1988 to California and Rosemead High, where he’d stay for the rest of his career and leave a lasting legacy for generations of students as a teacher of history and U.S. government, the football team’s offensive coordinator and head coach of the boys and girls tennis teams.

While teaching at Rosemead he reconnected through letters and phone calls with his high school girlfriend Judith (nee Hopkinson), who in 1990 became his wife and the great love of the rest of his life. Judy, then a school principal in Wyoming, moved to California and also taught at Rosemead.

In retirement, Jim and Judy moved to Henderson, Nev., where her daughter and extended family, which included many Wyoming cousins, were living. The couple served a mission together in Cody and became cherished members of local golf and church communities.

Jim was an active and faithful member of the LDS Church, serving as a high priest, member of the high council, counselor in the bishopric, Sunday school teacher, youth leader and popular church speaker and choir member.

Jim is reunited in death with his parents, his older brother, Jack Dalton, and a younger sister, Mary Alice Dalton, who died at birth.

He is survived by his wife, brother Mack Dalton, five children, many grandchildren and a loving extended family of all ages.

Jim had so many relatives that he on occasion would take to calling those he wasn’t related to his “great-great-grandfriend.” It was a good description of him. He was a great-great-grandfriend to everyone he encountered.

Funeral services were held on Friday, Feb. 7, at 10 a.m. at the LDS Stake Center in Henderson, Nev., with a viewing at 9 a.m.