William Kingsley Fulton

William K. Fulton lost his four-year battle with cancer on Monday, May 21, 2012. He was born on February 19, 1938 in Berkeley, CA, to Grace and Frank Fulton. When Bill was four his father went off to war and Bill began his life-long love of aircraft. He and his five-year-old buddies would lie on their backs in the yard learning to identify airplane silhouettes, thus becoming a dedicated, if unofficial, coast-watcher protecting the West Coast from a Japanese air attack. After the war the Fulton family moved to Saudi Arabia where Frank worked for Aramco Oil. Throughout the 1950’s he and his brothers would fly from the U.S. to the Middle East with stops and vacations all over Western Europe. Those years sealed his love of flying. Sent back to the U.S. to boarding school at age 14, his high school years were anything but smooth. His parents, in an attempt to give him focus allowed him to get his pilots license at the age of 17. In 1959 Bill married Tami. and in 1962 he found himself in Vietnam where he served as a helicopter crew chief. He left Vietnam with a Purple Heart and a commitment to getting a college education. In 1968 his only child, Paul was born and a few months later Bill graduated from San Jose State with an engineering degree. He began his 30-year career in the engineering department of United Airlines. After Bill’s first marriage ended in divorce, he met Sherry Ernst to whom he would be married for the rest of his life. They settled in Montara, California on the San Mateo County coast. They traveled often, visiting Alaska, Europe, the Caribbean, Hawaii, and even lived in Spain for over a year. Bill discovered the joys of motorcycling in the 1980’s and he and Sherry had a group of friends with whom they took weekend trips around California and longer summer trips through the western US and Canada. It was on one of these trips that they discovered Sandpoint. That memory eventually led them to retire there in 2002. Over the last few years Bill found a niche at the Bonner County Historical Society volunteering there 3 days every week and serving on their Board of Directors. His fellow volunteers buoyed his spirits during his long illness. Bill is survived by his wife, Sherry, his son, Paul (Treena), two brothers, Richard (Evelyn) and Tom , and his much loved cousins Leila Norman and Bruce (Shirley) Miner. His parents and a brother, James, precede him in death. Private family services will be conducted. Bill would have loved to see contributions made in his name to the Bonner County Historical Society, 611 So. Ella St., Sandpoint, Idaho, 83860. Watch for him to tip his wings whenever he flies by.