Joseph Dushek:
CLASS OF 1960
Flagstaff High SchoolClass of 1960
Flagstaff, AZ
Northern Arizona UniversityClass of 1964
Flagstaff, AZ
Joseph's Story
Footprints on the Sands of Time
These words of Longfellow are what I am feeling these days as I greet my Friends, associates and former colleagues:
I am very thankful for a full career and very interesting life after leaving FHS and NAU and venturing far beyond Arizona. A deep faith in a Loving Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ has driven me to many accomplishments beyond my own expectations. I became a deacon at the Flagstaff Federated Community Church in my twenties while growing up and set the foundation of my convictions there.
My parents, Al and Hilda Dushek, are gone now as is my brother, Jim, who died tragically in 1968. I sorely wish he could have completed his life and continued to interact with our Family and his many friends. As all of my fathers and mothers family are deceased I found myself the sole survivor of the Dushek's in 2005. I still own their residence at 311 West Apache on Fort Valley Road. We visited often, went on fun trips together, attended NAU reunions and kept in contact during all that time. Living at my duty stations in Seattle, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Cleveland and Las Vegas offered them exciting places to visit and explore. I took my father back to Maywood, Illinois (in Chicago) to see his old family residence and my mother to her birthplace in New Castle, Pennsylvania. We interviewed her old neighbors, the Ungars, who told of the exploits of her large family before leaving the coal mines and moving to Arizona when she was 2 years old.
In my family searches in geneology I learned that my Grandfather Joseph Dushek was an officer in Chicago Unions as they formed to protect the many laborers. My Grandfather John Binder Sr. had a lengthy career in Phoenix driving local Trolleys with his sons John Jr and Fred. They once rescued a small infant who had crawled on the tracks and saved him just before he was run over. They had ten children and my mothers Mom died when Mom was 10 years old. Both my parents attended ASTC and settled in Flagstaff to raise my brother and me. For a while we lived in Prescott until my father returned to fulfull a lengthy career for the City of Flagstaff and a volunteer fireman and my mother became a book-keeper at NAU. Al Dushek and Dutch Salzbrenner were known as the "touchdown twins" on the NAU gridiron in the late 1930's.
At FHS I became the Senior Class President and won a four year scholarship from the Valley Bank. I actually was a four year letterman but never was as great of an athelete as my father. The scholarship was awarded for academics, leadership and athletic participation tho. The other four year lettermen in 1960 were Bob Runke and Albrady Lee. We had a great football team at FHS those years. I loved working with my classmates and was a member of the Astronomy Club, Green and Brown staff and Student Council.
In Pony League baseball I played outfielder for the Giants coached by William Epperson, Chief of Police at Flagstaff. We were undefeated and had some great seasons. My senior year I was the Arizona representative of the Arizona Daily Sun and the Arizona Newspaper Association for the teenage press conference sponsored by the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan (I was 1 out of 170). I missed the FHS football team photographs because of the conference and did not appear in the Kinlani annual for the Eagles my senior year but did play the entire season.
At NAU I was chosen and active in SOPHOS Men's Honarary, Blue Key National Honor Fraternity and became the senior class vice-president in 1964. I worked as a stringer for United Press International and had my own Soft Drink business my junior year. Two weeks after graduation from summer school I began government work.
At the USGS, Branch of Astrogeology, we trained astronauts and prepared my boss, Harrison H. "Jack" Schmitt to get ready for his Moon landing for Apollo 17 in December of 1972. The geologist-astronaut Schmitt experimented with the "Rover" Lunar Roving Vehicle and was the Lunar Module Pilot. It was a very successful mission for Gene Cernan, Ron Evans and Schmitt and was the last lunar landing venture for the Apollo programs. Hugh Thomas also worked with me at USGS. I was priveleged to see and visit with Eugene M. Shoemaker, our Branch of Astrogeology Chief Scientist just a few days before he died in Perth, Australia. China and I presented him with an FBI hat from Las Vegas right after he got off the telephone with Ed Levy after discovering astroids with his wife Carolyn.
I became a management analyst for USGS working there from 1964 to 1967 including a short stint at the Navajo Army Depot in Belmont in the same capacity. Without a break of service I entered on duty with the FBI as a Special Agent on July 9, 1967 until hanging up my shield on April 30, 2001.
I actually worked for the Department of Interior, Department of Defense and the Department of Justice during my 38 years of service including unused sick leave. I became a Supervisory Special Agent in 1999 at Las Vegas for the Violent Crimes and Major Offenders Section and was granted a two year extension for employment beyond the mandatory retirement of 57 by Director Louis J. Freeh. I oversaw the Safe Streets Task Force (CATS) fugitive apprehension team; the Auto Theft Task Force (Viper) targeting stolen auto thieves and the Crimes against Children Task Force which is known as the Las Vegas Area Child Exploitation and Obsenity Task Force and in developing the Las Vegas Innocent Images Group I Undercover Operation in cooperation with the FBI's national initiative involving crimes against children on the Internet.
During my law enforcement career I received extensive training as an expert firearms instructor, SWAT senior tem leader and member in Cleveland and Las Vegas, defensive tactics instructor, HELO rappelling, bank robbery coordinator, and Las Vegas liaison representative to the U.S. Marshal Service from 1980 to 2001. I also graduated from the National Fire Academy in Cleveland, Ohio for the FBI with SA James C. Summerford. We solved many arsons for profit fires and had big convictions of the Joseph Nadir group in 1980. Mac Heck was the only person from Flagstaff that visited us in Cleveland other than our parents.
In Las Vegas I worked on the Anthony Spilotro organized crime family from Chicago arrest and trial until he was found deceased with his brother in an Indiana cornfield near Morocco in June of 1986...Expand for more
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I was assigned to the South Lake Tahoe bombing of Harveys casino and worked with the FBI investigative team effort until we identified and arrested and convicted John Birges and his two sons in 1981. It was the largest bomb the FBI had dealt with with 28 toggle switches and numerous anti dismantling systems. The bomb blew up but Harveys' remained standing. Even quarters were bent in half.
I also had many convictions in Las Vegas for the FBI for bank robbers, extortionists, UFAP fugitives, crimes on Indian Reservations, thefts from interstate shipments, Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property, thefts and robberies from armored vehicles, and for the bombimg of the draft board in Santa Cruz, California by Douglas Yamamoto. One of my first major convictions.
Besides working on Wheelbomb, OKBomb and several other major cases I participated in the successful prosecution of the Trenchrob bank robbers who stole millions of dollars from a bank in Tacoma, Washington and robbed over 14 banks in Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota, Nevada and Oregon.
I have additionally assisted in many arrests of fugitives featured on Americas Most Wanted, Unsolved Mysteries, Untold Stories of the FBI and Dateline and others such as the arrest and conviction of Claude Lafayette Dallas, who killed two game rangers near Winnemucca, Nevada. When he was arrested the first time SA Bruce Wick and I escorted the fugitive back to Reno in a twin engine airplane to the hospital after Dallas was wounded in a gunfight. He escaped during an Easter visit the next year and was re-arrested by the FBI at a 7/11 in Los Angeles. He supposedly never lived in a house and preferred life camping in the upper desert or making a livng as a buckaroo.
His shopping bag contained numerous twinkies, fast food items and modern day treats.
I survived advanced winter training for the FBI at Camp Ripley, Minesota, where we pulled our supplies on an akio sled while we skiid ahead of it; survived summer Regional SWAT training in the scorching heat north of Phoenix the same year which was halted because too many rattle snakes were spotted near the prison training facility; and rappelling over Hoover Dam with the Las Vegas SWAT team for discipline with SA David Shepherd.
I also participated in the FBI and ATF SWAT team seiges at Marion, Utah (20 below zero and the Las Vegas team was out all night in 4 feet of snow in our white uniforms) and arrested Adam Swapp; the FBI and ATF investigation into the bombing of the OKlahoma City Murrah Federal Building by McVey and Nichols, developing evidence in Kingman, Arizona with the Phoenix and Las Vegas teams. China and I visited the Honorary Tribute Museum
to the 126 victims in 2006 and observed the axle of the rental truck blown two blocks away. McVey built the bomb inside the Ryder truck and the FBI traced the serial number on the axle to proove McVey rented it and committed the crime which was based on a novel simulating the exact explosion at 9:02 am in the Turner fiction novel.
During my career I served as the Top Ten Fugitive Coordinator, the Bank Robbery Coordinator, the Senior Team Leader in SWAT and an active Expert Firearms Instructor up until my final day. Thus ended a great service career of 38 years, 6 months and 7 days. I loved the FBI and those I worked with in service to our country. Often travelling in Harms' Way daily we learned to depend on each other and to be thankful for our FBI family.
After the FBI, I served as the Regional Representative to Southern Nevada for Electronic Tracking Systems out of Dallas, Texas in Las Vegas for one year assisting local banks with electronic tracking of bank robbers. This led to many additional bank robbery convictions and recoveries but grew to big for one person to handle adequately.
This was followed by serving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as the Security Chief of the Las Vegas Nevada LDS Temple from November 2005 until November 0f 2007. After retiring this second time China and I began travelling to visit our seven children and family members in Portland, Oregon; Redwood City and Sacramento, California; Cottonwood and Sedona, Aizona and Rob and Jake in Minneapolis, Minesota. JoDee loves Sedona and her Grandmother Wilma Atha lives in Cottonwood.
I have maintained my contacts with NAU graduates who reside in Southern Nevada and when the Alumni commitees hold annual meetings in Las Vegas. Louie McDonald and Joe and Marie Rolle came to greet us at a great NAU reunion and my Mom was with us to remember old times and successes. We were updated on the growth of NAU and its future goals and asperations in Arizona. Many teachers, engineers, lawyers and lumber jack forestry majors still thrive throughout the U.S. today although many are ready to enjoy retirement as I am or already do. Augie Orci in the Clark County School District, with coach Charles Jaurequi, Tom Coleman, Sara Besser, and artist Charles Bonney, who had a shop in the Excalibur Casino, are among the few I have encountered at Las Vegas. There are many many others from FHS and NAU that still reside and work in Nevada.
The FHS class of 1960 has lost some oustanding members over the past few years: among those who have gone on are Mike McLaughlin, Robert Drake and John McGuire and Jack Bird, George Dash and Butch Wolfe and coach Gil Corona. For an updated more thorough list contact our Reunion Committe representative Ernestine Bojorquez Ruiz, who still resides in Flagstaff and does a great job keeping track of our classmates. Some are still missing and new addresses are needed.
So todays challenges remain clear to each of the natives and graduates of Flagstaff, both FHS and NAU, that we continue to prepare our children and future generations to live the best that they can be, in happiness, fullfillment and living conditions. May Flagstaff stay as serene, fresh, envigorating and beautiful to those who love it and carry the memories of our loved ones who gave a lot to keep it that way.
May we always be there for those that need us. The LDS church challenges us to be prepared for the unseen and unexpected and to work hard in preparing our mansions in Heaven for our families, lost loved ones and us by faith and by hope followed by a charitable and loving spirit.
May the Light of Jesus Christ guide us to our eternal destinies and may I greet you there.
Joseph A. Dushek
Flagstaff native Arizonan
and Republican
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