We continue our series on the young men of the Investor crew. There were four in all, including Coulthurst cousin Michael Stewart; veteran Coulthurst crewmember, Dean Moon; Dean’s high school friend, Jerome Keown; and Coulthurst family friend, Chris Heyman. In this installment, we focus on Dean Moon. We owe many of our insights to Don Tapperson of the Bellingham Herald.
“Ruth Moon sat this week among flowers and several dozen sympathy cards in the living room of her home in Blaine, recalling the day in July, 1980. Standing on a Blaine harbor dock, she watched as Mark Coulthurst’s first purse seine boat Kit sailed out of Blaine harbor, bearing her 17-year-old son Dean northward for his first stint as a crewman in the southeast Alaska fishery.
“‘Boy that was hard for me to let him go. Whew!,’ she said shaking her head. ‘The Investor (Mark’s next and last purse seiner) was 58 feet long and the Kit seemed about a third of the size. It looked so small to me taking off while I stood on the dock.’
“It was a two-month outing and Dean was ‘green,’ she said, ‘right out of Blaine (High school).’
Source: Don Tapperson, The Bellingham Herald, September 26, 1982
Dean would go on to spend two more seasons with Mark Coulthurst, working multiple fisheries, both in Alaska waters and California. On his last voyage on the Investor, Dean fished herring in Togiak and crabbed near Petersburg, before turning to the salmon fishery in southeast Alaska. During that time he was in training, with Roy Tussing teaching him to run the all-important seine skiff. Dean made skiffman when Roy left the boat after a lingering dispute with their skipper.
But Dean Moon was more than a fisherman. At Blaine High School, he was a star athlete. A true competitor. As a wrestler, he finished 2nd in County, 3rd in District and 3rd in Regionals. His nickname was “The Champion.”
Dean also played football all four years at Blaine High School. He was an elustive runner and played halfback. Also on the team was his good friend Jerome Keown, who played center. Dean and Jerome were, as they say, friends for life.
For all of that, Dean had a playful side, one defined by an irrepressible sense of humor. He was there when the crew of the Kit tied one of their drunken crewmembers to a table in the galley. And the one who arrived with the knife to cut him free. He wasn’t just the champion. He was the most far out. The photo below shows that in action. The shot looks a lot like someone taking a line of cocaine. Or perhaps it was just a chemistry experiment about to go spectacularly wrong.
Take it for what it was. A bit of whimsy from a couple of eighteen year olds. A couple of eighteen year olds who were in on the joke.
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Dean was the sweetest kid. I see his image and it breaks my heart.
I wish this could be solved. I am sure investigators know who it is and he lived in Bellingham.