Rodney William Pocock

Gilmanton, NH----Rodney William Pocock was born to Dallas (Schettler) Pocock and Rodney Pocock in Alameda, California. He graduated from Alameda High School in 1959 and went on to Brigham Young University. He interrupted his college career to serve an LDS mission, then graduated from BYU with a degree in performance piano and music education in 1963. Rod was a wonderfully gifted music teacher as well as performer, building a successful elementary/middle school music program in Spanish Fork, Utah after graduation from BYU. After 5 years in Spanish Fork, he was offered the opportunity to team teach with his best friend, Emil Geddes at Edna Hill School in Brentwood, California. After ten of the best years of his teaching career at Edna Hill, Rod decided to start a piano repair and tuning business. He married his life-mate, Joslyn Stephens, a CPA from Antioch, California in 1976, retired from teaching and began an exciting future that included building a successful piano tuning and repair business in northern Utah, owning and managing a number of piano and organ stores in Utah, California, and Mississippi, concertizing all over the United States for the Wurlitzer Organ company, returning to school to earn a Masters of Education degree at Mississippi State University in Starkville, MS, and working as a school administrator for many years in Idaho, Texas, Alaska, and California. Of all his accomplishments, Rod was most proud of his US Patent earned while developing the state-wide homeschool support program in Alaska named IDEA (Interior Distance Education of Alaska). He utilized the concepts of IDEA in a charter school he began and operated for 5 years in the Knightsen School District named HomeSmartKids, which he used to earn his Ed.D. He and Joslyn bought and remodeled old homes in every place they lived, including his last home in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. After retiring in 2005, he and Joslyn embarked on an exciting future of big-game hunting, with safaris in North America, South America and South Africa, and cruises all over the world. They decided to return to the work force in 2009. Rod was the Assessment Coordinator for John Tyler High School in Tyler, TX. Because of their daughter’s (Danielle Forsyth), health, they resigned and returned to New Hampshire at Christmas, 2009. Rod loved life and all it had to offer. His “unfinished business” centered around teaching his grandson “Bucky” to play chess and giving a concert recital. Grandpa of 6, “uncle” to many, and brother of Wanda Johnson and Jerry Wilcox, Rod was best known for his big smile and jolly humor which were forever dimmed following a sudden and unexpected heart attack in Concord, New Hampshire on February 4, 2010. Rod’s parents, brother, niece (Sherry Johnson) and adored brother-in-law (Wayne Johnson) have gone before and are lovingly waiting to see him again.
A Funeral Service will be held at 11:30AM on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at the Chapel at Holy Cross Cemetery in Antioch, California. Our dearly beloved husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle would have appreciated donations in his name to St. Jude’s Children Hospital, Tribute Program, PO Box 1000, Dept. 142 Memphis, TN 38148-0142.
Wilkinson-Beane-Simoneau-Paquette Funeral Home & Cremation Services, 164 Pleasant Street, Laconia, N.H. is in charge of the arrangements.