John McLaughlin: 100th Anniversary Cherry Festival Heritage Award

BEAUMONT, CA — In the late 1960s, John McLaughlin joined the Beaumont City Fire Department as a volunteer firefighter alongside his father, Don McLaughlin, who had been a volunteer for decades. Within a few years, John was hired full-time with the department, the start of a nearly 30-year career in the fire service.

“Working in the fire service was the type of job that when it was time to go to work, you wanted to go,” says John. “It was an exciting and fulfilling career helping people when they were most in need.”

As the Heritage Award honoree, McLaughlin and his wife, Rhea, will ride in this year’s parade in an open-cab 1931 Double A Ford fire engine, one of the first fire engines to be commissioned in Riverside County.

A 1963 Beaumont High School graduate, John is a third-generation Beaumont resident – his grandfather brought the family to town in 1928 from Arizona. John’s late father, Don, was a well-known employee at the Beaumont Hardware and Lumber Co., and his late mother, Thelma, owned and operated the Vogue Beauty Salon above their home on 8th Street, where John grew up with brothers Walt and Dan and sister Sandy.

As a young man, John worked at many businesses in the area that no longer exist: He was a busboy at the Rusty Lantern; he canned apricots in the summers at the Banning Canning Company; he pumped gas for Blaine’s Super Shell; he worked in the engineering department at the General Telephone Co.; and he was briefly a technical writer at Deutsch Company.

John also attended Mt. San Jacinto College, where he earned an associate degree and met his wife, Rhea Reynolds, who grew up in Indiana and Illinois and moved to California and the San Gorgonio Pass right after high school graduation to join her dad and stepmom, Bill and Shirley Reynolds, and to attend college. John and Rhea were married in 1965 at the Beaumont First Christian Church, and their daughters, Laurie McLaughlin and Lisa McLaughlin Rogstad, also are Beaumont High School graduates.

John’s firefighting career expanded when the Beaumont City Fire Department contracted with Riverside County in 1978, and he became an employee of the California Department of Forestry (now Cal Fire) and served the department as an emergency dispatcher, training officer and battalion chief as he rose through the ranks. He retired in 2001 as a Riverside County Cal Fire Division Chief responsible for fire operations from Desert Hot Springs to Blythe.

John and Rhea, who retired as the library director of the Beaumont Library District in 1990, were honored by the city during Beaumont’s 2012 centennial anniversary celebration for their past volunteer activities and community service. In celebration of the 100th Anniversary Cherry Festival, John and Rhea, who are both members of the San Gorgonio Pass Historical Society, are currently working on the historical society’s parade float and festival history exhibit.

John is also a board member of the Beaumont Kiwanis Club, was a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and has served in various capacities within the Four Seasons homeowners association. Over the many years, he’s been involved in the numerous activities of his daughters and grandchildren in addition to managing a Pony League team and serving as president of the Beaumont High School Alumni Association; as a member of the fire department, he helped organize Toys for Tots, Fourth of July fireworks and spent many days and nights working at the Beaumont Volunteer Fire Department’s popular Taco Booth at the Cherry Festival.

“My parents were very active in many organizations in Beaumont, and they instilled the ethic of community service in all of their children,” says John. “My father even served on the Beaumont City Council. Great cities are made by involved citizens.”

The McLaughins travel as often as possible, including trips to Oregon to visit their two grandchildren, Sam and Cora, the children of daughter Lisa and her husband, Kyle Rogstad. In retirement, John and Rhea are busy with long-time Beaumont friends as they continue to be active in their hometown.

“The Cherry Festival has been an important part of my family’s history in Beaumont. Attending as a child and marching in the parade, volunteering in the ticket festival booth with Kiwanis, working with the Taco Booth, and having my own children participate in many festival activities over the years has all been very special to me,” says John. “It is especially meaningful to be honored with the Heritage Award as it is similar to the one that my father also received.

“Many thanks to the Cherry Festival Association for selecting me.”

— ARTICLE AND PHOTOS SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION BY: San Gorgonio Pass Historical Society

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