Earl “Kim” Kimball (Winthrop ’59)
Posted: August 04, 2026
Kim was born to Earl Raymond and Constance Chesley Kimball in Brookline, MA, in March 1935. He passed away at the age of 91 on July 14, 2026, after a life of adventure and craftsmanship.
He grew up in Brookline, spending summers on Cape Cod and in Maine. He graduated from Brookline HS and earned a bachelor’s degree in forestry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He went on to earn a master’s degree in forestry from the Yale Forest School.
He married Gwendolyn Bissell, who’d been a nurse at the New England Deaconess Hospital, in June 1959. They would have three children.
Having undergone training to be a Navy pilot in Pensacola, FL (1956-57), Kim apparently thought it would be more fun to jump out of planes than to fly them. He accepted a job with the USFS, and he and Gwen drove across the country to Winthrop, WA, where Kim was in the 1959 rookie smokejumper group. Trained by the legendary Francis Lufkin (NCSB-40), Kim won accuracy landing contests. He jumped out of Winthrop in 1959, 1961, and 1962. He loved it.
The Kimballs lived in many small towns in Washington (Winthrop, Enumclaw, Snoqualmie, Auburn) and Oregon (Gold Beach, Oakridge). They also spent a year in the Philippines, where Kim worked as a forest advisor. They moved to McCall, ID, in 1976, where Kim later worked for both the McCall and Krassel districts on the Payette NF (1981-1990). He finished his USFS career as the ranger on the Krassel RD, located on the south fork of the Salmon River in Idaho’s backcountry.
For three decades after retirement, Kim continued to be a valued member of the ski patrol at Brundage Mountain Ski Resort, where he loved the quiet of the first and last runs of the day. In retirement, he also pursued his many passions, which included backpacking, sailing, canoeing, biking, and hiking. He organized and led excursions for friends and family including multiday trips on the Green River in the Canyonlands, the Missouri River, the Boundary Waters, and the Bowron Lakes in British Columbia. In the new house he and Gwen built in New Meadows, ID, he turned to woodworking, making furniture, cabinets, and toys, and helping with construction projects.
In 2022, Kim and Gwen moved to Dallas, OR, to be closer to family.
