John T. Bonner, M.D. |
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| John T. Bonner |
John Thomas Bonner, our 60th President, started small, tried big and ended up medium. He was born in Havre, Montana in 1936 (population in 1936: 6,400). He grew up in Butte, his mother’s home town to which she returned in 1938 after the death of John’s father. His summer vacation work at the local Anaconda Copper Co. smelter taught him the value of education. He got his collegiate degree from Carroll College in Helena in 1959. Although well connected in Montana (father’s brother Governor, mother’s brother state senator), after deciding on medicine as a career, gave the big city a try by getting his M.D. from the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago in1963 (Chicago population in 1960: 3.55 million). After a surgical internship at Duke he received his neurosurgical training at the University of Washington followed by a 3 year stint as assistant professor at the University of Missouri. Having had enough of the midwest, east and northwest, he struck out to Fresno, California in 1972 and remains there still (Fresno population in 1972: 165,000).
Jack has been a stalwart member of the Fresno medical community for 30 years being very active in the local medical society, serving as its President in 1985, and carrying his local activism to the state level as a California Medical Association delegate for 27 years. He also served as President of the California Association of Neurological Surgeons in 2006. Retiring from neurosurgery in 2003, he has continued in the medical fray to this day as a medical consultant to the California Department of Social Services.
Dr. Bonner joined the Western in 1981 and has been a fixture at nearly every annual meeting since. He spent 6 years as our Historian before being tapped as President.
Jack is married to Romona (an R.N. he ran into in Chicago) and after 47 years of marriage, both feel it probably will last. They have three grown children, Kerry Lynn, Cheryl Lee and David John, all with advanced degrees, and a German shorthaired pointer named Liesl, a breed of which Jack is particularly fond considering his interest in bird hunting. He and Romona both appreciate fine wine, particularly that made by Fresno State University’s Enology and Viticulture department. Jack is rarely without his Nikon, belying his strong interest in photography, and he and Ro can be found at every Fresno State home football and basketball game.
Presidential Address 2011
(PDF 80KB)
Presidential Address 2010
(PDF 33KB)
Presidential Address 2009
(PDF 98KB)
Presidential Address 2006
(PDF 120KB)
Presidential Address 2005
(PDF 65KB)
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