Jeffery Craig Cox

Jeffery Craig Cox Jeffrey Craig Cox was born in Ogden, Utah on April 6, 1947 to J. Ray and Frances Cox. He died in Tacoma, Washington on October 16, 2018. Jeff studied piano with Flo Edmonton Davis, played baritone sax in Gil Burns’s Coeur d’Alene Junior High and High School Bands, and sang in Lou Kelly’s North Idaho College Choir. He also played guitar and banjo and loved all music from Dixieland to Debussy and from folk to gospel. The Memorial Baseball Field was just across the street from his Park Drive home, where he played ball and did some umping as he outgrew the peewees and developed an admiration for the game and for the kids who were talented players. He hugely respected his winning high school debate coach, Richard Hyneman, who shaped the national championship team that made it to the final round in Boston. Jeff credits his partner Don Gumprecht’s legendary stash of index cards for the win. Jeff was a National Merit Scholar and an Idaho Boys State Delegate. He graduated from CHS in 1965, attended Gonzaga University on a full debate scholarship and was elected Freshman Class President. But he was a restless autodidact at heart and soon abandoned the Inland Empire for San Francisco to see what the cultural revolution of the sixties was all about. He was among the muddy faithful at Woodstock but soon got to work earning a living back in The City by the Bay. He had a job as a bicycle delivery boy for a pharmacy by the time his $20 and a pilfered can of tuna were gone, and he soon graduated to a position at Industrial Indemnity Insurance where he worked in the personnel department as a trainer and later set up their first rudimentary computers, foreshadowing his eventual career. In San Francisco he established a talent agency called Musician’s Switchboard and made extra cash by playing gospel rock in a progressive neighborhood church. He moved to Tacoma, Washington in the early 1970’s and worked for Fick Foundry before launching his first computer business, Cox, Johnston and Strand, in Seattle - a design firm that provided custom programing for small and medium businesses, including Tacoma’s Almond Roca confectioner, Brown and Haley. He subsequently worked on his own in the custom programming field with clients throughout the country and the world. He loved the travel and the work, and above all, his clients who became friends. Jeff is survived by daughters Kimberly Cox Johnston (Christopher), Katie Cox Hensperger, and his beloved stepson Paul Widsten, with whom he shared his love of music and computing, and for whom he served as a Cub Scout Leader, assistant Soccer Coach and all-around great father throughout Paul’s childhood and beyond. Jeff is also survived by his brother Stephen Paul Cox, sisters Norma Renee Cox Brown (Ted), Claudia Rae Cox Gehri (Coleman) and Kathy Lynne Cox Green and a batch of nieces and nephews, each of whom was his favorite Arrangements by Edwards Memorial, Funerals Homes, Chapels and Crematories. 253-566-1008