Dr. John Fredrick Yegge, 89, of Richland WA died June 16th, 2025. He was born in Muskegon MI on October 29, 1935, the son of John Paul and Emma Sue Yegge and loving husband of Dr. Margery Jean (Swint) Yegge. He passed away in Richland, WA. He is survived by his wife Margery, adopted twin daughters Dr. Jane Marie Yegge-Farber (Redding CA) & Jennifer Sue Yegge-Terry (Maple Valley WA) and Paul John Yegge-Terry (Syracuse UT). He is also survived by 5 perfect grandchildren: Emma Terry, Melissa Yegge, Jack Terry, Dean Farber & Ellie Farber.

John was born during the Great Depression, the oldest of five children. His early hometown, Kent City MI, a community of fewer than 200 souls with an elementary school of 8 grades in 3 classrooms.

He was the only son of the town’s only physician. His was the only catholic family in a Bible Belt community, and his most loyal friend was the town’s only Black resident- and elderly woman born during the Lincoln Administration. So, in an early life pockmarked by “onlys”, he acquired an early understanding of loneliness and isolation.

His parents didn’t believe in “allowances” so he learned about work at an early age. His after school and weekend time was first spent mowing grass and shoveling snow and later delivering early-morning newspapers (followed by piano practice before breakfast!), seasonal farm labor, and on alternating summer days selling fruit in a farmers’ market and making sodas and hamburgers in an ice cream shop. Finally, He became the tax-paying proprietor of his town’s only Saturday evening Band Concert popcorn concession.

Polio at age 15 interrupted John’s High School Freshman Year. The disease left him with a lifetime limp in spite of nearly nine-months of therapy in a Grand Rapids MI children’s hospital where his schooling continued with a tutor.

John’s high schooling resumed in a Jesuit boy’s boarding school in Wisconsin. That’s where he found, contrary to expectations, that his three-room elementary school education and weekly piano lessons had prepared him well for high school. Unable to compete athletically, he nurtured a talent for mathematics and music (Outstanding Music Student of the Year, 2 years running -organ- and a subsequent BS in Mathematics at Marquette University.)

A mid-course digression from pursuing a degree in mathematics took John to a one-year stint at the University of Michigan’s medical school. (It was his physician father’s dream,

not John’s.) But it was there that he met, and eventually married, his classmate and lifetime companion, Dr. Margery Swint.

John & Margery resided first in Milwaukee, John as a high school Science and Mathematics teacher and Margery as an Anesthesiology Resident and later as a practicing anesthesiologist.

In 1965, John seized an opportunity to enroll in a Master’s Degree in Science Education program in Oak Ridge, TN, affiliated with the University of Tennessee.

In a lifetime filled with digressions, John & Margery spent their 2nd day in Tennessee driving the 400 miles to Memphis to meet and immediately fall in love with their 10-week-old adopted twin daughters, Jane and Jennifer (originally named Mary & Martha for their first few days by nuns at St. Peter’s Home of Children).

Following a one year stint where John taught Chemistry and Mathematics as a member of the original faculty at Southwestern Michigan College (Dowagiac, MI), the family then numbering four, returned to Oak Ridge as employees – John as a trainer of science teachers and a Staff Scientist at Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) and Margery providing anesthesiology services at the nearby hospital. John’s time at ORAU took him on brief AEC assignments in Teheran Iran and Bucharest Romania (ironically, it turned out, encouraging acceptance of nuclear power).

John’s digressions continued, this time as a combination graduate student and research staff position at Harvard University where he pursued a 2-year EdD degree in Science Education. Meanwhile, Margery and daughters Jane & Jennifer soldiered on in Oak Ridge. During this time, John’s only son, Paul John, was born.

John’s work in Oak Ridge was marked by the development and patent of an “Energy- Environment Simulator,” an analog computer real-time simulation of world energy resources and uses; that effort, used as a group decision- maing game, was prompted by the “Arab Oil Embargo” of 1973. The simulator was widely used by millions in the 1970s and 80s. Leading the nationwide program that featured the simulator brought him to Richland WA where he served as Associated Director and eventually the Director of the Northwest College and University Association for Science (NORCUS).

The availability of personal digital computers in the mid-70s led John to pursue pioneering work in the development of interactive teaching materials for use in educational settings by exhibit halls, science museums, the Jackie Robinson Hall of Fame and the New Orleans World’s Fair. This work was accomplished jointly by genius hardware designer Donald Frame with John designing the software as InterroPoint, Inc., a Richland enterprise incorporated and led by John.

Volunteer activities rose into the foreground for John in the latter half of his life. Many of them with unsought leadership roles.

He volunteered with CONTACT Tri-Cities, a 24/7 telephone crisis line service, eventually becoming a trainer of volunteer phone workers and Board Chairman.

As a member of the Kiwanis Club of Tri-Cities Industry (a community service organization), John volunteered in leadership roles at the Club, Division, District and International levels- that included crafting commercially marketed educational materials that earned more than $100,000 for Kiwanis charitable activities.

He volunteered as a “peer counselor” serving senior citizens in emotional turmoil. This eventually included his serving as a trainer of volunteer counselors and, eventually, employment as Program Coordinator on the staff of Nueva Esperanza Counseling Center (Pasco)

He served on the School Boards of Tri-Cities Prep and St. Mary’s Elementary School in Oak Ridge TN, Red Cross of Tri-Cities, Tri-Cities Residential Services, the Neurological Resource Center, the Kiwanis SIGN Steering Committee and others, often assuming leadership roles.

For more than 3 decades, John read, via a public radio link, the loc al newspaper for blind radio listeners, first as a volunteer and later a Program Coordinator as well. John also narrated (for about 15 years via a short-range radio link) the visual portions of Richland Players’ production for blind Tri-Citians.

John had a heart for kids, especially those at risk:

• Served as a Guardian Ad Litem (a “court- appointed special advocate” for abused or neglected children too young to represent themselves in court),
• Served as a “Special Friend” for elementary school- age boys without positive male role models in their lives,
• Two decades served as pen pals with 4th grade children who, having learned to read, needed a stimulus to start reading to learn.

In Lieu of flowers, friends and family might consider donations to one of John’s favorite charities: SIGN Fracture Care International of Richland.