Ronald Chastain

DOUGHERTY FUNERAL HOME
600 East 2nd Street phone (218) 727-3555
Duluth, Minnesota 55805 Fax (218) 727-7514


Ronald Zane Chastain, 83, of Duluth died on Saturday, June 21, at St. Luke's Hospital. Zane was born in 1931 to Ada (Downey) and Joseph Chastain in Jackson, Alabama, where he spent his childhood surrounded by a vast extended family. He graduated from Jackson High School in 1949 and spent the next two years at Louisiana State University, which he attended on a basketball scholarship. When the U.S. joined the Korean War, Zane enlisted in the Army, where he honorably served for two years in the press corps.
After his discharge from the Army, Zane landed a job as a copy boy for the Houston Press, thus launching his career in journalism. He quickly rose to the position of outdoors editor at the Press and embraced that role with passion and enthusiasm. Among his most memorable assignments were walking 50 miles from Galveston to Houston to promote physical fitness and covering a fishing tournament in Havana, Cuba, in 1960 where he met Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Ernest Hemingway.
He met his wife Patsy Sheppard in Houston, and they were married in 1956. They had two daughters there before moving to Duluth for a short time where Zane wrote for a press agency and they welcomed a third daughter. They were back to Texas before long where Zane spent several years in stints managing Chamber of Commerce publications in both Austin and San Antonio, where a fourth daughter was born. He returned to Duluth in 1974 as editor and eventually publisher of a trade magazine centered around the LP gas industry. He remained in that position until his retirement in 2000.
When he wasn't traveling for work, Zane could be found on golf courses around the Northland. His home-away-from-home was Lester Park Golf Course, where he spent many happy hours and managed to score at least one hole-in-one.
Zane was preceded in death by his wife, Patsy Glyn (Sheppard) Chastain; brothers Wheeler Webb and Rex Cooper; and sister, Elizabeth Yeager. He is survived by daughters Carole Linder, Minnetonka, MN; Lesley Chastain, Duluth; Jill Chastain-Howley (Andrew), Arlington, TX; and Dominique, Duluth; grandchildren Zachary Linder, Minnetonka; and Cuillin, Perri, and Kean Chastain-Howley, Arlington, TX; and several nieces and nephews. Zane was interred next to his wife during a private ceremony at Forest Hill Cemetery in Duluth.
Arrangements by Dougherty Funeral Home 218-727-3555