Mel Lamping always loved new adventures

Mel Lamping, of Dalton Gardens, was a princess.

She took home the Daffodil Princess title as a senior at Curtis High School in Tacoma, but her title never faded in the eyes of family and friends. She died June 18 of a cancerous brain tumor after being diagnosed more than two years ago. She was 60.

An honor roll student, cheerleader and valedictorian, she made waves in high school. She participated in several school committees and graduated in the first graduating class, with 52 students.

“I was little and I truly thought she was a princess,” says Nora Pearson, her younger sister. “My mom made her beautiful prom formal with chiffon and satin and I thought she was the prettiest thing in the world.”

Nora said her sister was well-organized and neat, and remembers times when Mel could tell when her tiara had been tampered with.

After high school Mel set out for her teaching degree and married her high school sweetheart, Jim Lamping. They were married 40 years and had three children, Jeffrey, Tracy and Caren.

Jim also was in school to become a teacher and graduated from Central Washington University. When he took a teaching contract in Coeur d’Alene, the family moved to North Idaho and Mel wrapped up her education at Eastern Washington University.

While Jim taught, she began working as a seamstress and sewed all the uniforms for the North Shore Motel, now the Coeur d’Alene Resort. She started teaching first grade at Ponderosa Elementary School in Post Falls a few years later and remained there for 22 years.

In the middle of her teaching career, she took a job teaching for the U.S. Department of Defense in Japan for two years, which quickly tapped her adventurous side. She and Jim traveled in China, Korea and Japan, and made several trips to Hawaii.

“We ended up making friends there who came from every part of the world,” Jim says. “All of a sudden, she went from being a Northwest kid to being a worldwide kid.”

Even at home, Mel jumped at every chance to get out and enjoy a new adventure, he says. They took advantage of nearly every weekend in the summer to see something new. She loved outdoor activities and camping in North Idaho, but her favorite spot was on Chinook Pass in Washington with Mount Rainier in the background.

She scheduled each day, including chore days, shopping days, work days, and other mornings where she’d sit in the sun with a new magazine and read every article about arts and crafts.

And even on vacation, she always had a hand in the planning, he says.

“My idea of vacationing was to point the truck south and start going,” Jim says. “Mel would buy $75 worth of books, travel guides and maps and would have meals, hotels and stops along the way already planned out.”

He says his detours to McDonald’s weren’t tolerated, because it was off the schedule and went against Mel’s healthy eating habits. She was petite and slim, standing just over 5 feet tall, and rarely indulged in junk food.

When Mel was diagnosed in March 2002, Jim retired from teaching to care for her. He was startled when a few months before she died, she wanted only chocolate ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

“She threw out all the rules and started eating some things I couldn’t believe,” he says.

But she kept a sense of humor through the end, he says.

One afternoon after he’d been feeding her the same food for every meal, he decided to offer other choices to help her take her medication.

He asked if she wanted tomato soup, chicken broth, or a few other choices.

She told him to be quiet, he talks too much.

In other words, just shut up and bring chocolate ice cream, he says.

She nodded and he brought a full bowl.

Nora says Mel was one of the few people who could handle her dry, sarcastic sense of humor and was one of the first to laugh while others waited for her jokes to sink in.

“She expressed it so often to never waste a moment because you just never know,” Nora says. “She’d always say today’s the present. It’s a gift, so think of it that way.”