Obituary: Roy Alan Box

Roy Alan Box was born Feb. 2, 1935, in Wallace, Idaho, to Ralph Box and Bessie (Thompson) Box, and grew up in Wallace and Chehalis, Washington.  

Roy Alan Box

Roy had many interesting jobs as a young man, including driving freight trucks, cleaning chicken houses, hard rock mining in Idaho, and driving an ambulance. Roy was a Navy Reservist from 1952-1960, but his favorite summer job came in 1955 when Roy first set foot in the territory of Alaska. He worked at a logging camp on Prince of Wales Island for the Ketchikan Pulp Co. for $3.10 per hour, mainly as a choke setter, but also as a camp cook and logging truck driver. He paid his own way through the College of Optometry at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, by logging in the summer and as one of the cooks for the 250 students at Pacific, helping prepare three meals a day during the school year.  

Upon graduating in June of 1960 with his Doctor of Optometry degree, he had $37 to his name. When he learned of an optometrist job in Juneau, he jumped at the chance to return to Alaska. Roy first worked with Dr. Clancy Meyer, whose office was near the corner of Front and Franklin next to Harry Race Drugs, where the Jewel Box was located for many years. Dr. Meyer sold the practice to Roy and Gilbert Kemp in 1961. Roy and Gil moved Juneau Optometrists to the Foodland Shopping Center a year or two later and were next door to Sam’s Bakery. They had a special deal with Sam’s, and kids who came for eye appointments will remember a "treasure chest" Roy kept with small toys or a coupon for a free donut from Sam’s. As part of his work, Roy traveled all over Alaska in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s providing eye care services. He held clinics and saw patients from Wrangell, Petersburg, Hoonah, Pelican, and Cordova in Southeast all the way to the North Slope, where he conducted a study on Myopia in Alaska Native people. He sometimes bartered services, glasses or contacts for local goods, often bringing home a case of shrimp or a giant jar of pickled herring from Petersburg, or Alaska Native art such as cedar root or baleen baskets, masks, or ivory carvings.  

Roy loved Alaska and serving his community. When he first arrived in Juneau, Roy became a firefighter and lived at the downtown firehall. Roy met several of his closest friends at the firehall, including Rudy Ripley and Jerry Adams. As part of the Juneau Fire Department, he fought fires, hosted a haunted house at the firehall on Halloween, and threw taffy at the Fourth of July parade. He continued as a volunteer firefighter until 1976.

Roy met his future wife and the love of his life, Carol, on the very first day she landed in Juneau in 1961. Roy and Carol were married in LaGrande, Oregon, in 1963, and lived in the Juneau Fosbee apartments the first year of their marriage. Roy and Carol purchased the Carter House (named after a prominent Juneau doctor) near the top of Main Street in 1964, and welcomed two children; a daughter, Sheila, in 1965, and a son, Steve, in 1967. They had lilac trees that Roy would cut flowers from to bring in for Carol, a dog named Koolie, ducks, deer hanging in the garage during hunting season, and a smokehouse for smoking salmon in the summer.  Roy loved the outdoors and all of the bounty of Alaska. He loved to fish, dig clams, pick berries, and went on many hunting trips with good friends Dick Gregg and Rudy Ripley, as well as countless outdoor adventures with his family.

Roy actually couldn’t swim, but he loved to be on the water, so he bought a 24-foot boat, the Carol II, and in his trusty orange float coat he and the family had many adventures fishing, digging clams, and setting crab pots. Beachcombing was also a favorite pastime, and the family found all kinds of treasures around Southeast, from glass balls to plastic Japanese floats that Roy would cut up to create hanging planters. Other amazing finds included a nearly whole whale skeleton, and a find of Carol’s, a 1920s hatch cover with brass trim that Roy always meant to turn into a coffee table and which the family still has.  

Roy and Carol also had a cabin on the Taku River with Jerry Adams and Bob Hurley from the late ’70s to the mid ’80s, where the kids learned to canoe and climb over beaver dams to fish for cutthroat trout, then fry them up for breakfast with Roy’s specialty: sourdough pancakes. Friends Rudy and Judy Ripley, across the river with their three kids, ensured there was always lots of good food, laughter, games of cards in the summer, and moose hunting in the fall. 

Roy actually went to college to study music before he switched to optometry. When he realized the amount of musical talent in Juneau, Roy recruited high school music teacher Cliff Berge to create the Juneau Symphony in 1962. Roy played clarinet with the symphony until sometime in the ‘80s. He enjoyed playing showtunes in the orchestra pit during Perseverance Theatre musicals as well as on stage for classical performances.

Roy and Carol were charter members of the Juneau Gun Club, shooting trap there for about 20 years during the ‘70s and ‘80s. The kids helped by selling hot dogs and chili in the clubhouse and setting clay pigeons.

Roy and Carol were both members of the Juneau Ski Club when their son Steve was ski racing. They helped to gatekeep and run timing equipment at Eaglecrest from the late ‘70s to the ‘90s, both learning to ski during this time so they could travel around the US to ski and watch Steve race.  

Roy was also a member of the Juneau School Board from 1971-74, serving as president 1972-73.

Roy’s Recipe Box, a local recipe column, was Judy Ripley’s idea. Commercial Art, Rudy and Judy’s business, printed the local TV guide, the Info Juneau. Rudy did a caricature of Roy, and Roy submitted over 30 recipes between 1978 and 1981. One of the recipes, Roy’s Butter Lemon Parmesan Grilled Salmon, was even on the Fiddlehead Restaurant menu for a while as “Red King Roy’s Style.”

In 1976, Roy and Carol moved to Lena Loop Road, and in 1980 he opened his solo practice, Eyewear Center Southeast, in the Professional Plaza complex on Glacier Highway in the valley. Roy continued learning throughout his professional career and offered many additional services to his patients as technology became available. He was a member of both the Alaska and American Optometric Associations, and was named Optometrist of the Year by the Alaska Optometric Association in 1972. Roy enjoyed helping and getting to know his patients, and said of his practice, “I can’t remember a day I didn’t want to go to work. It’s work, but it’s been fun.”

Roy was a member of the Glacier Valley Rotary Club from the early ‘80s until he retired, and thoroughly enjoyed the fellowship and service of this group, from the friendly lunches and "fines," to the service projects like the Boat Show and Pillars of America speaker series. Roy was treasurer of Glacier Valley Rotary from 1988-89 and chair of the Riverside Rotary Park Committee, which dedicated the park in May 1990. He was very proud of the work of Rotary International, including the PolioPlus program to eradicate polio to the International Youth Exchange program. Roy was named a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International, which acknowledges individuals who contribute to the Rotary Foundation.   

Upon his retirement in March of 1999, Roy was honored by the Alaska Legislature with a proclamation dated May 4, 1999, signed by Brian Porter, Drue Pearce, and Bill Hudson, for 38 years of service to the community of Juneau. 

In 2000, Roy and Carol purchased a 5th Wheel trailer and eventually moved to Lake Havasu, Arizona. They enjoyed golfing and playing cards with friends there, and exploring the route between Lake Havasu and their summer cabin on the south end of Dezadeash Lake in the Yukon Territory. In the Yukon they fished, hiked with their dogs Misty and Taffy, picked berries, gardened, and hosted kids and grandkids for the Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay, Thanksgiving, and many other visits. 

In 2010, Roy and Carol moved to Union, Oregon, near where Carol grew up. They enjoyed gardening, harvesting apricots and apples from their fruit trees, and watching the birds and the deer in their yard. Roy had a large garage for his wood shop in Oregon, and continued the woodworking hobby he began in Juneau at the Lena Loop house. He made many exquisite projects; from entertainment centers, a chest of drawers with ebony handles for his daughter, side tables, headboards, shelving units, and boxes and chests of all sizes. He learned to turn wood bowls and was interested in using different kinds of wood, from Alaskan Spalted Birch to Oregon Olive wood, Black Walnut, and even projects out of reclaimed barn wood. Friends in Oregon would call Roy when they were going to take down a tree or a barn, to see if he wanted any of the wood. Roy was very generous with his talent and gifted many of his bowls and projects to friends and family.

Roy loved to play Cribbage, and there were decks of cards and cribbage boards on every boat trip, hunting trip, at the cabin, and on ferry trips. Roy and Carol kept track of over 14,000 games, and Roy got a perfect 29 hand only once in all of that time, on Oct. 13, 2024.

Roy passed away Jan. 19, 2026, in Union, Oregon. He is survived by the love of his life, his wife of 62 years, Carol Box, his daughter Sheila Box, his son Steve Box and his wife Molly, and his two grandchildren, Corey Box and Nikki Box, as well as several nieces and nephews.