1976
John P. Healy Jr.
Obituary
October 12, 1951 - August 26, 2007
2006
|
1976 |
John P. Healy Jr. Obituary October 12, 1951 - August 26, 2007 |
2006 |
John P. Healy, Jr, drama teacher at Oak Ridge High School in El Dorado Hills, Ca, passed away unexpectedly on August 26, 2007. He experienced complications from a fall at home that resulted in a head injury. He was hospitalized, but the internal bleeding could not be stopped.
John was born on October 12, 1951 to the late John and Patricia Healy in Brooklyn, NY. His family moved to San Jose, California in 1963. He is survived by his wife of 26 years, Dee Dee Healy, and his siblings Patricia McElroy of San Jose, Ca, Mark Healy of Chandler, Arizona, Anne Field of Gilbert, Arizona, and Mary-Jane Giorlando of Scottsdale, Arizona as well as many nieces, nephews, and grand- nieces and nephews.
John had many interests in life. As a youth he was active in church activities and Boy Scouts, achieving Eagle Scout. He attended Stanford University on a cello scholarship with a Music and Theater double major from 1969-1972, and received his degree from the University of Phoenix in 1985. While attending Stanford, he created a touring group with 15 friends, called the Entr’actes, which was the basis of the Cabrini Community Theater, the predecessor of today’s San Jose Children’s Musical Theater. During that time he was also a professional cellist with the San Jose Symphony, joining as the youngest member of the group in 1967.
In 1976 he was selected by the San Jose Jaycees as the "Outstanding Young Man of the Year". He directed, choreographed, musical directed and designed most of the 150 shows that the SJCMT did in its first 12 years of existence. In 1973 he was a founder of the San Jose Gilbert and Sullivan Society. He served as director for their first two shows, and performed in others.
In 1985 he began teaching Theater Arts at the Abraham Lincoln Performing Arts High School in San Jose, where he teamed with the reknown choreographer/dance teacher Debbie Wilson and musical director Anne-Marie Katemopoulos to produce outstanding dramas and musicals for the community. Many of the Lincoln Performing Arts students have continued on into professional careers in the Arts... and the 1995 musical "Into the Woods" gained national recognition as the "Outstanding High School Musical of California" , featured on the Kennedy Center for the Arts web page.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, John and Dee Dee directed and worked on many West Valley Light Opera productions, most of them winning the theater's Outstanding Production Awards.
In 1986 John's kidneys failed and his wife, Dee Dee, donated one of her kidneys and both made a full recovery. This was the second living non-related transplant in the US and the first wife to husband kidney transplant on the West Coast.
In 1999 John once again set history when he received a second kidney transplant from his younger sister Mary. He was the first patient in the US to successfully use a newly designed plasmapheresis protocol from the University of Maryland that enables organ donation to patients with high antibody rejection levels.
John and Dee Dee moved to Cameron Park, Ca in 1996 where John taught Theater Arts, first at Elk Grove High School and then at Oak Ridge High School in El Dorado Hills. Over the years, John has developed an award-winning theater program, including multiple nominations for last year’s productions from SARTA. He was one of the co-founders of El Dorado Musical Theater and directed several of their productions over the years.
John had an abiding interest in promoting organ donation and his family would invite you to consider a donation in John's name to either the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation or the United Network for Organ Sharing in lieu of flowers.
A funeral Mass will be held at Holy Trinity Catholic Church on Wednesday August 29 at 11AM followed by a reception and private interment. A celebratory memorial service will be held Sunday September 9 at 2pm at Oak Ridge High School. Further details are posted at http://www.CenterStagePRD.com/
Funeral arrangements are being handled by Green Valley Mortuary.