Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Norm Baxter moved to Alaska when he was middle-aged but his easygoing personality and work ethic won him the affection of many friends and co-workers.

A service will be held 2 p.m. Saturday at the American Legion Hall for Baxter, 69, who died Nov. 16 at his Union Street home. He was suffering liver failure and advanced lymphoma.

"On the outside, he looked like a rough guy, but he was really a sweetheart," said retired contractor Larry Hura. After Baxter arrived here in the late 1980s, Hura hired him as a carpenter and the two worked together building homes in Tenakee Springs.

"He was a great worker. I really liked Norm. I never had to worry about him on the job. He knew what he was doing and would do a good job," Hura said.

Norman Eugene Baxter was born March 21, 1953 in Albany, Ore. His stepfather John Fraser was a construction worker on the Golden Gate bridge. His mother Edith worked in medical and real estate offices. He spent much of his early life in northern California, graduating from high school in Crescent City.

According to wife Cheryl Baxter, Norm served in the U.S. Army in Germany before living on the island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean, where he "dove for lobster and enjoyed the sunshine."

Baxter returned to California and later moved to Haines, connecting with childhood friends here. He worked for local construction firms, including as a cement finisher, before becoming a pile-driver, a job that sent him to dock and bridge projects around Alaska, including Dutch Harbor and Alaska's North Slope.

A lifelong outdoorsman, Baxter sometimes would sleep outdoors in a tent at remote job sites.

"He camped out a lot in tents. He roughed it. He was tough as nails," said former longtime resident Brian Lemcke, Baxter's fishing and hunting buddy. Lemcke said he poured miles of concrete with Baxter around Haines when he was working for local contractors.

"He was dependable. He was a tough guy and a good friend," Lemcke said. "He had his own set of personal rules but he was respectful of other people."

Baxter's wife Cheryl said she married Norm three months after meeting him in 1990. Her husband liked black Labradors, collecting old coins, shooting pool in local tournaments and playing pull-tabs.

He enjoyed hosting friends at his home, sometimes just hanging out with them in his garage, chopping and stacking firewood, Cheryl said. The couple moved into a house at Third Avenue and Union Street in 2009.

"As long as he could be, he was an outdoors guy," his wife said. "When his health turned, he had to give up pile-driving."

Baxter is survived by mother Edith Fraser of Medford, Ore., wife Cheryl of Haines, brother Rick Baxter of Roseburg, Ore. and sister Renna Nelson of Crescent City, Calif. and by step-sisters Stacey and Julie Fraser.

Cards and remembrances can be sent to P.O. Box 1214, Haines.