Gene Elton Davidson was born on a ranch near Westmore, Mont., March 29, 1913 and died at Warm Beach Health Care Center Sept. 9, 2012.

Early days were spent on a Montana ranch until the family moved to Eastern Washington (Greenacres) in late 1923. A year later, they moved to Pullman, where Gene finished his schooling, graduating from Washington State College in 1938.

College activity included training in ROTC, membership in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the WSC Aero Club, which constructed several primary gliders.

He established a duration record by soaring an "Eaglerock" trainer above Steptoe Butte for four hours and 28 minutes. Later, Gene was the statistician for the Northwest Soaring Contest at Badger Mountain near Wenatchee.

After graduation, he held positions with the Boeing Co., Consolidated Aircraft Corp. and the U.S. Army at Fort Ord, Calif. in 1940. He served nearly five years in Army Ordnance with the Ninth Air Force in Europe during World War II.

While taking a refresher course in engineering at the University of Cincinnati, he met Jeanette Haubner, a student at God's Bible School in Cincinnati. She found the Lord at the school and Gene, while visiting her, was saved in the Spring Revival of 1947, and they were married in the fall.

They moved to Oregon in 1949 where Gene worked in designing on the Detroit Dam Project near Mill City, joined the Free Methodist Church there and later they pastored it for nine years.

After spending two years developing the new Oregon conference grounds at Alderstate Park, they moved to Seattle where Gene did mechanical design work for Fisher Mills, Inc.

They were members of the Rainier Avenue Free Methodist Church in Seattle for 12 years, during which time Gene was ordained deacon at Warm Beach Conference, July 25, 1976.

He and his wife were charter members of the Sonshine Society, a Christian group serving nursing home residents.