Milton Hanks

Milton Ray Hanks was born in Montpelier, Idaho on August 3, 1946. He was the 3rd son and 5th child of Delbert and Katie Hanks. He was married to Kathleen Kennedy Hanks for 40 years and they had 7 children. He served honorably in the United States Air Force and flew helicopters in Vietnam. Milt was a landscape artist. He was also the mayor of Eureka, a small mining town in Juab County, Utah.

Milt?s father was a Boy Scout executive and they moved to Dayton when he took the job of Executive Director of the Miami Valley Council of Boy Scouts. Milt attended Longfellow Elementary and Colonel White HS.

I met Milt in the summer of 1961 when my family moved to Dayton. He and I were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We had some interesting times with our youth group activities. We also attended an early morning religious studies class called Seminary. His sister, Nancy, would drive us in the morning and we would go from our church on Fountain Ave. to Colonel White. Incidentally, Nancy Hanks played the role of Marsinah in the CW production of Kismet.

After high school, I lost contact with him for many years but the advent of Facebook and our alumni group on FB got many of us back in contact. In August of 2009 I was out in Utah for a visit with my sister who lives in Tooele. I mentioned on FB that I was in Utah and Milt replied wondering where? When I told him he said he lived right down the road and we arranged for him to come up and have dinner with my sister, brother-in-law and me. We had a lovely evening chatting and eating. The next day my brother-in-law and I drove down to Eureka and spent some time at his house. His artwork is beautiful; you can see a large picture on his FB page. That was the last time I saw him and he wasn?t really active on FB so I didn?t hear much until his son posted on his page in May 2014 that Milt was in the hospital in bad shape with a septic infection and would likely lose a foot. He did in fact lose part of a leg but did recover. However, after a lengthy battle with diabetes, he passed away on March 20, 2019 at the VA Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was laid to rest in the Bluffdale Veteran?s Cemetery in a private memorial service.