Daily Sitka Sentinel

Clifford George Robards

Clifford George Robards

Episcopal services for Clifford George Robards will be held 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Peter’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church. Rev. Julie Platson will officiate.

A reception hosted by the Sitka Emblem Club will be at the Sitka Elks Lodge from noon-3pm after the church service.

A viewing will be from 7 to 9 p.m. tonight at Prewitt’s Funeral Home. 

Interment will be 10 a.m. Monday, Oct. 9, at Sitka National Cemetery. 

Cliff, 80, died of natural causes in his home on Harbor Drive on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017.

He was born Dec. 14, 1936, in Longview, Wash., to Clifford L. Robards and Gladys (Dodge) Robards.

Cliff arrived in Juneau in 1940 with his family, when his father was hired as the first residential engineer for the Territory of Alaska. The family then moved to Anchorage when his Dad went to work for Columbia Lumber. 

Cliff graduated from high school and attended the University of Alaska in Fairbanks before the family relocated to Sitka, with his Dad working for Columbia Lumber Company – located on the same property that son Tuffy now owns as Stereo North.

Cliff’s first job in Sitka was as U.S. marshal for the Territory and then as a  police officer for the Sitka Police Department.

He was a player on the Sitka ANB basketball team and traveled to Ketchikan where he met the love of his life, Shirley Elizabeth Milonich. They married on April 18, 1959, at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.

In 1960 he was drafted into the U.S. Army and was stationed in Straubing, Germany, for the next two years. After returning to Sitka he went back on the Sitka police force, until 1964 when he took a job at Alaska Lumber & Pulp Company. He was with ALP for 26 years as a Roving Foreman. 

The second love of his life was his son Tuffy, born in 1963, and when he retired in 1993 from ALPS it was to work and be a partner with Tuffy at Stereo North. After purchasing the property at 342 Lincoln Street, father and son together in 2005 designed, planned and oversaw the building of the Stereo North building with an apartment upstairs for Shirley and Cliff, a dream come true.

Besides being a licensed electrician, Cliff loved going fishing with Shirley, he drew and painted, played the piano, was a wood carver, an avid ping-pong player, a designer and architect, and an overall fix-it person with no job too complicated or too small. 

Cliff was a Life Member of the Sitka Elks Lodge and Sitka Sportsman Association, and belonged to the Moose Lodge. He had served on the Vestry of St. Peters Episcopal Church.

If you ask his family about who he was they would tell you he was always ready to help you or give advice if you asked for it, his family wrote. “He would take the time to explain in detail the why and how something could be fixed or done. Whether at a family gathering or dinner at one of his favorite eating spots, it was guaranteed a discussion about current events, politics, family, religion or just about anything would give each and every one of us the ability to voice our opinion.

“He loved it. We were all given the smile, the wink and then ‘Remember I love you’ no matter how the conversation ended.

“Family meant a great deal to him and Uncle Cliff was always there for us. We will all miss him very much.”

Survivors include his wife Shirley and son, Tuffy, of Sitka; brother John Robards of Longview, Wash., sister Ruth Black of Seattle, Wash., and sister-in-law Ethel Staton of Sitka. 

Other survivors are niece Candi Barger, of Sitka, her son Heath Barger, daughter Gerri Chambers, and granddaughter, Holly Chambers, all of Bellevue, Wash.; and nephew Norman Staton and his wife Donna, of Juneau, and their daughters, Katie McCann (Justus) of Eugene, Ore., and Tess Staton of Juneau. Other nieces and nephews also survive.

Pallbearers will be Tuffy Robards, Heath Barger, Norman Staton, Robert Paul Leighton, Don Anderson, Mark Puletau, Perry Comas and Chris Balovich

Honorary pallbearers are Ricardo Morales, Dominic Salvato, John Robards, Douglas Henie, George Messerschmidt, Leslie Pellett, Billy Brown, Blake Ricketts, Jon Calhoun, Billy Steinbach, Jon Shennett and Yarek Nibursky.

Correspondence can be sent to P.O. Box 235 or 342 Lincoln St., Sitka, AK 99835. Memorials may be made to a favorite charity in Clifford Robards’ name.

The family would like to thank everyone for all their gestures of love and support. ‘‘Your kindness and prayers have given us strength,’’ family members said.