John Charles Harris

John C. Harris died of pancreatic cancer on July 30, 2005. He passed away peacefully while surrounded by his loving family in his home in Oshkosh.John was born in Los Angeles, CA, on September 12, 1951, to proud parents Rue and Ruth Harris. He grew up in Santa Monica, where his first job was as a paper boy delivering the Santa Monica Evening Outlook. John delivered the paper to many of the famous people that lived in the Santa Monica area, including Jimmy Doolittle, Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy, and Irene Ryan of the Beverly Hillbillies. John graduated from Santa Monica High School before going on to the University of California, San Diego, where he received a Bachelor of Art in Experimental Psychology. John received his Juris Doctorate in 1977 from the University of California, San Francisco, Hastings College of Law.After law school, John moved to San Diego with his then wife Suzanne and their first child, son James Rue Harris. Johns second child, daughter Jessica Lynn, was born in 1978. In 1987, after two years of working for the San Diego City Board of Supervisors, John became a Deputy District Attorney for the County of San Diego. His most memorable and satisfying work during this time was when he prosecuted child abusers.John went on to private practice and then, in 1994, decided to go back to school and work on a PhD in Social Ecology, with an emphasis in Criminology at the University of California, Irvine. John loved learning new things and being a student. While working on his PhD, John taught some introductory courses at UC Irvine and found that he loved teaching more than anything. John moved to Oshkosh in the fall of 1999 to teach at the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh. He fell in love with the town of Oshkosh and also with fellow professor Kathleen Corley, whom he married on August 4, 2001. John taught fulltime as a professor of Criminology until 2002, when he cut back on his teaching to become the Director of the CAPP program, which allows Wisconsin students to take college courses in their high schools.John was loved so dearly by all in his life and will be remembered as a fun loving, smiling, intelligent, generous, easily entertained, and entertaining father, son, husband, and friend.John is survived by his parents, his loving wife Kathleen Corley, and two children Jessica Lynn and James Rue Harris. He also leaves behind many dear friends around the world, as well as those here in Oshkosh.For those wishing to memorialize John please donate to LUSTGARTEN FOUNDATION FOR PANCREATIC CANCER RESEARCH, about which more information may be found at www.lustgarten.org or at 1111 Stewart Ave., Bethpage, NY 11714.