Philip Gordon Clites passed away in Silverton on Wednesday, February 4, 2026, three months short of turning 100, after a three-year battle with melanoma. He was born April 20, 1926 in Red Oak, Iowa, second of four children of Austin and Ruby Clites. He lived in the city of Red Oak, on his grandmother's farm outside the city, and in Nebraska City, Nebraska, throughout his childhood. After graduating from Red Oak High School in the class of 1943 he joined the U.S. Navy, attended the University of Wisconsin (Madison) under the Navy's "V12" program, and was commissioned as a Navy officer after graduating in 1946. He remained on active duty for a few months, and was released from active service later that year. He remained active in the Naval Reserve until 1986, retiring with the rank of Commander.

After leaving active military duty, Phil moved to Oregon and found a position as a high school teacher in Silverton, where he taught math and science from 1947 – 1957. He married Ragnhild Storruste, also from Silverton, in 1951. Phil and Raggie raised three children there, in their house on James Street, across from the high school. He was an avid and skilled woodworker, and over the course of 60 years remodeled the house, made much of its fixtures and furniture, tended the yard and orchard, and built by hand a classic Gothic arched-roof barn with laminated roof beams behind the house, which continues to get compliments from passersby. He was a beekeeper for many years, and a lifetime member of the Willamette Valley Beekeepers Association. He designed and built an observation hive used by the association at the Oregon State Fair for a number of years.

In 1957 Phil took a mechanical engineering position at the U.S. Bureau of Mines research center in Albany, Oregon. He continued living at the James Street house in Silverton, which required a

longer, and sometimes memorable, commute. There he designed furnaces for specialty metals like titanium and zirconium and was awarded three U.S. patents for his contributions to a method for melting metal with induced electrical current, called electroslag melting. He retired from the Bureau in 1984 and was a part time independent consultant for a few years following.

After retiring Phil also volunteered as a tutor for students who wanted some extra assistance with algebra and other mathematics. At first this was done individually, at the James Street house, incentivized by Raggie's home-made cookies. After her passing in 2012 he remained at James Street, with its many flowers, rhododendrons and especially fruit trees. He continued his math tutoring at the school itself as a volunteer to the math department. He had a polite but dry sense of humor: as more and more tutoring students relied on their cell phone calculators, he would joke that "it would help if they had learned their multiplication tables in elementary school." Many of these students returned for his help on subsequent college math courses. Phil moved to Mount Angel Towers in 2019, with frequent visits to the James Street home. The annual Clites family cider pressing party was a celebrated event.

Phil was known as Gordon or "Gordie" when younger, "Curley" at the Bureau, and "Grandad" by the extended family. He was active with the Silverton High School classes 1949 – 1956 reunions and periodic lunch gatherings until he gave up driving at age 98. Several of the classes he taught started a scholarship fund in his honor when they celebrated his 90th birthday with him. In lieu of sending flowers, contributions to the scholarship fund would be welcome. The address is: SHS Alumni Association, 303 Oak St., Silverton, OR 97381. Mark contributions for the Phil Clites Memorial Scholarship Fund. Better still, spend some time teaching a young person in your life how to do math with paper and pencil.

The Mount Angel Towers, at 1 Towers Lane in Mt Angel, will host a gathering for family and friends to remember him on Saturday, March 28 at 1:00 p.m. Phil is survived by his sister Sherry Penney in Oklahoma, three children in Oregon: David Clites, Julie Johnson and Jenny Morgan, six grandchildren and four great grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. He was a remarkable man of quiet service to others and will be sorely missed.