Rodney Pease, 98 expert marksman trained S.D. police

San Diego Union-Tribune, The (CA) - Tuesday, June 19, 2001

When Rodney S. Pease wasn't polishing the pistol-shooting skills of police officers, he was winning marksman medals left and right.

Shooting expertly with either hand, he had won more than 900 medals and trophies by the time he retired in 1950 from his San Diego Police Department post.

He taught his first wife and three daughters to shoot competitively, adding more hardware to the family trophy cases, and he put on exhibitions that smacked of marksmanship magic.

Aiming over his shoulder, using the reflection in a diamond ring on his finger, Mr. Pease could put a pistol bullet through a swinging target. And he simultaneously could shatter two targets blindfolded with a gun in each hand.

Mr. Pease, who also helped build and design the department's pistol range on Federal Boulevard, died June 6 at Lo-Har Lodge in El Cajon. He was 98.

His health had declined since he suffered several fractures in a fall in January, said a daughter, Patricia Owens.

In 1935, while working as a custodian at the Police Department, Mr. Pease qualified on the city civil service examination for firearms instructor. He traded his broom for a pistol and set about creating a firing range on a Depression-era budget.

"Before Rodney, officers were given a gun, a hearty handshake, and sent out to do the job," said Steve Willard, a director of the San Diego Police Museum.

With funds from private shooting lessons he gave to city employees and wood from buildings created for the 1935 California-Pacific Exposition in Balboa Park, Mr. Pease began to create what came to be regarded as one of the finest police pistol ranges in Southern California.

"Some of the labor was provided by trusties from the city jail," Owens said. "They carried rocks from a creek bed down Home Avenue" to the construction site.

Mr. Pease, who also served as the range custodian, built a house on the grounds in which he and his family lived.

With targets almost in their back yard, his wife, Myrtle, and the couple's three daughters polished their sharpshooting skills. By 1949, Myrtle Pease had won three state pistol-shooting titles and more than 200 medals.

Owens, who began shooting at 6, won more than 50 medals by the time she was 11.

"Rodney put his heart and soul in developing different training methods," said Stan Nebedonsky, who retired from the San Diego Police Department as a captain in 1972. "He even had us riding in police cars and firing at targets, and firing from a barricade, then moving on to another. He was quite innovative that way."

After retiring from his civil service post at age 48, Mr. Pease managed rental properties and indulged his passion for hunting. Going after mountain goats, bears, elk, deer and caribou, he hunted in Canada and throughout the West.

Mr. Pease was born in Aiken, S.C., and moved with his family to San Diego at age 7. He attended San Diego Military Academy and San Diego High School, where he met his first wife.

At his father's urging, he studied to become a certified public accountant. But his heart was in firearms and he was more interested in electronics than in numbers.

"He could read a manual and remember everything," Owens said. "He devised an intercom system for the target crews at the pistol range."

Said Barbara Ghosn, another daughter: "If he couldn't find something he wanted, he would invent it. He built backstops that could be used inside a building to trap bullets, and he put in the sound system for Scottish Rite Temple in Mission Valley."

In 1932, Mr. Pease won an international pistol match in Mexico City. He was awarded distinguished marksman's medals in rifle and pistol shooting by the U.S. War Department.

Blood poisoning in his right trigger finger, diagnosed in 1936, turned him into a two-handed marksman. A natural right-hander, he shot and competed only left-handed for several years. Many of his medals and trophies have been donated by his family to the San Diego Police Museum.

During World War II, with a shortage of transit personnel, Mr. Pease worked a second job as a trolley conductor.

Mr. Pease's first wife died in 1967. His second wife, Mary Grace, died five years ago in Sun City, Ariz., where the couple lived for 17 years, Owens said.

Survivors include daughters Patricia Owens of Spring Valley, Barbara Ghosn of University City and Shirley Svetich of Marina; six grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.

A memorial service was held June 9 at San Diego Masonic Temple. Private inurnment was at Cypress View Mausoleum.