Theodore Albert Kauth

Theodore Albert Kauth, a local educator and avid fly fisherman, died on July 12, 2018, in Santa Barbara, California. He was 90.

Ted was born on March 4, 1928, in Kennewick, Washington. He was the second of seven children born to the Reverend Martin and Marie Kauth. In his early years, Ted was very active, enjoying fishing and sports. At Kennewick High School, he played football and basketball. One year, his team advanced to the State Basketball Finals. He continued to excel in athletic pursuits at Pacific Lutheran University, where he quarterbacked the football team. Ted was also an avid tennis fan. He coached the Kennewick High School Tennis team for a few years, and he enjoyed playing tennis until he was sixty-eight.

After graduating with a degree in education, Ted took a job teaching in Guam. It was there he met his first wife, Ginger Gragert, who also worked as a teacher. They were married for twenty-two years and traveled the globe on their honeymoon, visiting numerous destinations including Thailand, India, Egypt, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, and England.

Ted then took a teaching job in Nigeria, where his son, Bill, was born in 1952. Upon returning to Kennewick, his son, Marty, was born in 1955. Ted and Ginger were teachers there until 1959. They then moved the family to Carpinteria, California, and Ted accepted a position as a science teacher at La Colina Junior High School in Santa Barbara.

Ted later became the first Vice Principal of Goleta Valley Junior High School in Goleta, California, when it was established in 1964. He served in this position for twenty-three years, retiring in 1987.

Ted took his family on many memorable summer vacations, such as camping trips in the Sierra Nevada mountains with the families of other science teachers. An accomplished sailor, Ted served as the Captain of his sloop, the S/V ADIA, and sailed from Santa Barbara to various destinations with friends and family members, including Baja California Sur, Mexico, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

In 1977, Ted married his soul mate, Roma, who worked as a home economics teacher at Goleta Valley Junior High School. They traveled on great adventures together, visiting Australia, New Zealand, and Spain. Ted also made solo trips to the Amazon River, the Galápagos Islands, and Easter Island. In 1990, Ted and a close friend rode the entire Trans-Siberian Railway, and they traveled across China in 1993.

Ted’s lifelong love of fly fishing inspired the purchase of a “camp” on the Big Horn River in Montana. Many friends visited Ted and Roma at the “camp,” and they floated down the river with Ted in his drift boat. Up until his eighty-eighth year, he traveled to both Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, and British Columbia, Canada, fly fishing with Bill for sea run brown trout and steelhead.

Ted and Roma eventually moved into the Valle Verde Retirement Community in Santa Barbara, where they made many new friends and acquaintances. He spent his final days there, surrounded by his wife and sons.

Ted is survived by his wife, Roma; his brothers, James, Roland, and Gerald; his sisters, Geraldine Gullickson and Helen Pederson; his son, Bill, and his wife, Laurie Bentson; his son, Marty; and his granddaughter, Kimberly Bentson Kauth. He was preceded in death by his parents; his first wife, Ginger; and his sister, Caroline Scheuer.

Ted was a loving husband, a caring father, a great teacher, a kindhearted grandfather, an excellent fly tyer and fly fisherman, and a gentleman. We loved him, and we will miss him.