
ficer, selling insurance, and taking shifts in a cannery.
Chuck graduated from Lewis & Clark Law School
in 1958. He tried his first case the next day. Though
his practice was primarily plaintiffs’ personal injury,
Chuck also took on criminal matters. His favorite was
the fight to overturn the death row conviction of Teddy
Jordan in 1965. Teddy had been wrongfully convicted
of a Klamath Falls murder in 1932 and served
three decades in prison. Teddy, a young black man,
had been convicted solely based on his “confession” –
made after investigators tortured him with electrical
shocks to his testicles. Chuck picked up Teddy from
prison on his own birthday in 1965. Chuck was a
mentor to many young attorneys and spent the last
twenty years of his long career in partnership with his
daughter Jane. Fellow Bob Keating recalls that as a
very young lawyer he was with Chuck as he reviewed
a defendant physician’s office record at the beginning
of the doctor’s deposition. Chuck grabbed a piece of
paper from the file and handed it back to the physician
saying “you do not want to give me this.” It
was the narrative the doctor had written to his lawyer.
That spoke volumes to Bob – as it should to all of us.
Amy passed in 2011 after fifty-nine years of marriage.
Chuck remarried and was survived by Linda Mercado,
in addition to four children, nine grandchildren,
three great-grandchildren, four step-children, and
four step-grandchildren.
Eugene I. Pavalon, ’77, died on May 26, 2020 at age
eighty-seven. Gene graduated from the University of
Illinois at Navy Pier and from Northwestern University
School of Law in 1956, after which he served in
the United States Air Force as a JAG officer. He was
President of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association in
1980-81, President of the American Trial Lawyers Association
in 1987-1988, and President of Trial Lawyers
for Public Justice in 1993-94. Gene loved boating
and fishing and classical music. He was an avid
weightlifter. He was survived by his wife, Lois Pavalon
nee Frenzel, three children and seven grandchildren.
high school, Bob persuaded his mother to sign a release
allowing him to enlist in the Navy in 1943. He served for
three years, then graduated from Harvard University in
1948 and Harvard Law School in 1951 before attending
Queens College Cambridge on a Fulbright scholarship.
Bob was survived by his wife of fifty years, Kathleen von
Schrader Owen, three children and eight grandchildren.
Donald Patterson, ’75, was ninety-five when he passed
away on February 10, 2020. Don graduated Phi Beta
Kappa from the University of Nebraska in 1947 and
received his Juris Doctor degree from the University
of Michigan in 1950. Don served in the United States
Army on a medium tank crew as driver and gunner. Don
was President of the Topeka Bar Association in 1974 and
served on many professional committees. He was on the
board of directors for the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes
Park, Colorado for over twenty-five years. Don was
survived by his wife of seventy-three years, Mary Verink,
a daughter, six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren;
he was preceded in death by a son.
Charles Paulson, ’83, died June 12, 2022 just a few
days shy of his 91st birthday. Chuck began working
summers at canneries as a freshman in high school,
hauling 100-plus pound bags of sugar and salt and
learning the value of hard work and education. Chuck
enlisted during the Korean War and served as a paratrooper
in the 82nd Airborne. After his service, Chuck
and his wife Amy returned to Portland where he began
night law school while working as a Portland police of-
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