David "Scott" Worthen

David “Scott” Worthen died Friday, July 29, 2022, at the age of 74. The doctors will tell you it was from natural causes. But the cancer more likely developed from the stress associated with watching the one he cared most about for over 40 years confined in isolation and quarantined seclusion for the better part of four years, due to the Covid-19 Pandemic and all its variants and the protocols required by her assisted living environment. We’ll never know for sure.

Scott was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on April 25, 1948, to Paul W. and Billie Elaine Worthen. He as the third of five siblings. Being born into a very religious Mormon family, it’s ironic that his hurried birth resulted in delivery, and subsequent christening, at St. Mark’s Catholic Hospital in Salt Lake. It may have even contributed to his lifelong reluctance to understand the global differences in religious conviction and commitment!

Scott grew up in Boise, after the family was relocated to Idaho in 1953 by his father’s employer, General Electric Company. At seven years of age, he accompanied his father on one of the very first jet boat runs up the Snake River to inspect the progress on construction of the Hell’s Canyon Dam, one of the three upper Snake River dams to be built by Idaho Power, and put into production with GE turbines and other large power generating GE apparatus. As youthfully memorable as that early jet boat ride was (in a fiberglass boat!), Scott later in life became a committed Steelhead and Salmon advocate, avid fisherman, and river boat enthusiast! He remained a strong advocate for breaching the upper Salmon River dams and recovery of Idaho’s anadromous fish runs his entire life!

Scott grew up on the Boise Bench, attending elementary, junior high and high schools in Boise. He graduated with many long-term friends and classmates from Borah High School in 1966. He attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, for two years, mostly on the ski slopes of Park City, and the several other wonderful resorts within an hour drive of Provo. But that’s also where he learned the inverse relationship between the number of hours spent on the ski slopes and a respectable undergraduate GPA!

After a three-year hiatus, Scott returned to the college campus, first at Boise State, and then finishing undergraduate school at the beautiful University of Montana in Missoula. He committed another nearly two years to graduate studies in Economics and Business, but never fulfilled his desire for an MBA. As it turned out, his business successes did not suffer because of it.

Scott founded and developed the primary clientele for a specialty transportation retail insurance brokerage in 1981, and he built the company into a premier provider of property and casualty transportation insurance products in Idaho and the Northwest. With the help of friends and colleagues with Industrial Indemnity and Great West Casualty, he developed several specialized insurance programs that were partnered with the Idaho Trucking Association, to provide appropriate and adequate workers compensation coverage to an industry that has suffered for generations with that issue. He was active in ITA and spent many long work hours working on safety and risk management programs to benefit the entire OTR motor carrier industry and to promote stronger relationships between large fleet carriers and independent owner-operators. He later sold the enterprise to a large international retail insurance conglomerate and retired in 2017.

Scott met and married Sharla Johnson in 1982. She and her three kids became the focus of his mid-life efforts. They spent numerous hours and days on the softball field, water skiing and lakeside at Cascade and Warm Lake, casting a fly in Stanley, jet boats and drift boats on the Clearwater, Snake, Salmon, and Payette Rivers, anywhere there were rapids and riffles to ride and fish to catch.

Scott was an avid outdoorsman and loved the bow hunting challenge. His ‘game room’ at home is legendary, with trophy memories of elk, moose, bear, whitetail, mule deer, prong horned antelope, and Idaho’s unique blend of Merriam and Eastern wild turkey.

His mountain home and cabin in Cascade, Idaho, also reflects many more similar and memorable representations of those outings. He loved the hundreds of days spent hiking, hunting, fishing, skiing, riding high country snowmobiles, 4-wheelers, side-by-side off-road UTV’s, and boating the many wonderful venues of those central Idaho counties. He spent two weeks of nearly every year on Sharla’s South Dakota CRP chasing wild ring-necked pheasants with his best friends and hunting buddies, GSH pointers Annie and Lulu. He traveled and hunted several different states and Canada, but his happiest times were spent in his own Idaho backyard in Valley County.

Scott was a big fan of off-road racing, snowmobiles and 4-wheelers. He sponsored and managed a three-year Snowcross racing tour with his youngest stepson, Mark, on tracks all over the Northwest! Although not the proudest statement, he often said he hoped to leave the biggest ‘carbon footprint’ he possible could! And he may just have done that!

Scott leaves behind his loving wife of 40 years, Sharla; stepchildren Michael L. Johnson, Terri Renae (Tyler) Woodland, and Mark D. Johnson; grandchildren Darieann Johnson, Mackenzie and Hazie Woodland, and Parker Johnson; great-granddaughter Rastalynn Johnson; sisters Marti (Dan) Scott of Boise, Judy (William) Hunter of Provo, Utah, and Bobbie (Dr. Steven) Christensen of Rexburg, Idaho; and all the very special friends who shared time with him on the golf course, out on the lake, huddled around the fire pit at the cabin, or just a cold beverage around the pool on a hot summer eve. You know who you are!

Scott was preceded in death by his parents, Paul and Billie Worthen, brother James C. Worthen, brother-in-law Dr. Steven Christensen, special niece Dianna Hunter, and a small few of those lifelong friends, including two very special canines, Coeur d’Alene Annie and Liverpool Lulu – the best pheasant dogs to ever work a sorghum field in the Midwest!

At his request, there will be no public services. Interment will take place at a private cemetery on the family property in Cascade. Also at his request, in lieu of flowers, a donation to the charity of your choice would be more appreciated. Scott’s favorites were St. Luke’s Cancer Institute (MSTI), WCA (Women’s and Children’s Alliance), St. Jude’s Children’s Cancer Center, the Idaho Humane Society, and the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.

A celebration of life will be held at his and Sharla’s home in Boise at a later date, hoping we all continue to survive the onslaught of Pandemics, the threat of World War III, the stupidity of politicians from BOTH sides of the aisle, and the horrible variants of all!!