Class of 1939

Eric G. Barham, 82, of Baywood Park died Monday, July 1, 2002, at a San Luis Obispo hospital. No services are planned.

Dr. Barham graduated from San Dieguito Union High School in San Diego County and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II. He was wounded in Okinawa and received the Purple Heart.

Dr. Barham first attended college under the G.I. Bill at San Diego State University. He later taught there as a professor of marine biology before joining the Navy Electronics Laboratory. He graduated from Stanford University and conducted his doctorate work at Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey.

Dr. Barham participated in the bathyscaphe Trieste’s underwater studies in the 1960s and was part of the team of scientists to discover the mysteries of the shifting false-bottom condition in the ocean known as the deep scattering layer. He made the discovery as a biologist at the Marine Environment Division of the Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego during a series of dives off Baja California. He later conducted similar studies off the coast of Puerto Rico and along the Atlantic Coast. Dr. Barham was later assigned to the Naval Underseas Warfare Center and then the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Southwest Fisheries Center in La Jolla.

After retirement, Dr. Barham was a public speaker and an award-winning fly fisherman.

He is survived by his wife Betty; daughters Christine, Cynthia, and Cecilia; five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

—The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, California, published July 5, 2002

… A graduate of the high school in 1939, he returned from England after World War II ended and obtained a master’s degree in education from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Then he went back to his old high school in 1952 as an agriculture teacher and no-nonsense adviser to the Future Farmers of America club on campus…

…He served the district 43 years and five months. During the early decades, he was a stalwart of the agriculture program. Remember, in those early years, this was a small community. There were no houses around the high school like today. Many of his students went on to become horticulturists, veterinarians or teachers.

From the February 16, 2008 obituary by J. Stryker Meyer of the North County Times/Californian. You can read this obituary in its entirety here. More information on Mr. Cunningham also may be found here on this site.

ENCINITAS — Harley Denk, whose grandfather was one of the original founders of the Olivenhain colony, died Sunday at his home. He was 86 years old.

A well-known citizen of Olivenhain and Encinitas, Denk worked tirelessly over the years for the Encinitas Elks Lodge, the Olivenhain Water District and Rancho Santa Fire District.

His grandfather, Louie Denk, was a German immigrant cobbler who settled in Olivenhain in the 1880s.

In 1936, Harley Denk’s father, Bruno, was named one of the original trustees of the San Dieguito Union High School.

Harley Denk was the second of three children.

One of his proudest moments, his daughter Harleen Denk said, was on Dec. 6, 2003, when he served as grand marshal of the Encinitas Christmas Parade.

—”Remembering Harley Denk,” the North County Times,
September 30, 2008,
by Ruth Marvin Webster.

You may read the rest of this obituary here.