Mark Sizemore, 73, died in his sleep at Haines Assisted Living on June 20. He had been ill several years from side effects of treatments that cured throat cancer in 1998. He and wife Joan Sizemore volunteered at the finish line of the Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay earlier that week. He was a fan of “Please Don’t Bury Me” by John Prine and the lyrics sum up his last wishes. “Throw my brain in a hurricane, and the blind can have my eyes, the deaf can take both my ears if they don’t mind the size.” His family and friends are planning a send-off bonfire on the shore of his Viking Cove home.
Sizemore loved fishing in Lynn Canal, a good meal with friends and especially dancing with Joan at the fair. “Mark was a really good dancer,” and they made quite a pair, friend Ken Seright said.
In Haines, people saw Sizemore, an oil tanker captain, when he was off-duty. He was a good neighbor who got along with everyone and kept the home while Joan, a marine pilot, worked on the cruise ships. He was very supportive of her career.
“Mark always had my back,” she said.
Yet for years he was a master on ocean-going cargo ships and tankers about 1,000 feet long and weighing over 160,000 tons. Masters are the highest authority on board. They oversee all aspects of a vessel’s operations, from navigation to administrative duties.
“Mark was a humble guy with a lot of accomplishments,” Seright said.
“Simply put, Mark Sizemore was a class act,” friend Fuzzy Von Stauffenberg said. His soft southern drawl, handlebar mustache and smiling brown eyes added to his graciousness. “Mark always opened the door, pulled out the chair, would not seat himself until you were seated. He was such a wonderful person to be around.”
Mark Adams Sizemore was born Feb. 18, 1951 in Colorado Springs. His father Bobby was an Air Force colonel with a Haines connection. He had flown missions over “The Hump” in Myanmar during WWII along with Alaska tourism pioneer Chuck West. His mother Evelyn Adams was a homemaker. They moved every few years. He attended school in Japan and in several states before graduating from high school in the Rio Grande Valley near Brownsville, Texas. Afterward, his family headed to Germany, and he stayed to work on Gulf of Mexico shrimpers. He started as a “header” on the F/V Blood and Guts and was a captain by the time he left 10 years later to attend the Merchant Marine Academy in Galveston. He graduated in 1975 and sailed the world as a merchant seaman on cargo ships and tankers, working his way up the ranks. Home base was outside Austin, Texas. (He loved the music.) He was married and divorced. After becoming a captain, he worked almost exclusively for Keystone Shipping on crude oil tankers traveling from Valdez to pipelines and refineries in Panama and Washington.
His first command was the 855-foot tanker Keystone Canyon. While under a scheduled Coast Guard inspection on the Columbia River at Astoria, Oregon a midnight storm broke all 18 dock lines and set it adrift. The tanks were empty for the inspection, so there was no ballast. The engines had been powered down as well. The hull rose some 50 feet above the waterline and was exposed to the wind like a sail. Sizemore gave emergency orders to close the Astoria-Megler Bridge and the river to traffic as they swung into the current. Some power was restored. “He gave the direction ‘full stern’ heading sideways toward the bridge, while backing onto the mud flats on the opposite side of the channel,” Joan said. They barely brushed the bridge (no damage) when he flooded the tanks and ground to a halt in the mud. The Coast Guard inspectors on board were impressed. “Mark’s career went pretty well after that,” Joan said.
Sizemore wed Joan Arnold in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day weekend in 2000. They had met working on a ship. They moved to Ketchikan for her work piloting in the Inside Passage. She called him from Haines weekly. “It would be a beautiful day here and raining buckets there,” she said. They have been in Haines ever since. Sizemore retired in 2009 and bought a sport fishing boat. “I’d be working, and he would be catching and smoking fish,” she said. He enjoyed a pint of local stout and died just before the Haines Brewery’s 25th anniversary. Friends raised a glass in his honor.
In addition to Joan, Sizemore leaves brother Robert (Carol); sisters Molly and Margaret Sizemore, and numerous nieces and nephews.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to SAIL at 8711 Teal St. Unit 300, Juneau, AK 99801 or Haines Assisted Living, P.O. Box 916, Haines, AK 99827, with gratitude for their assistance and care.