Ronald Eugene "Skinny" Swartzlander of West Sunbury passed away at 7:05 p.m. Thursday at the Autumn Grove Care Center.

He was born Feb. 19, 1935, near Fenelton, the eldest child of James Ernest and Gladys Flick Swartzlander.

He had two teachers in eight years at the one-room Duff School in Clearfield Township, where he was a member of the Boy Scouts and the 4-H clubs. He was a 1954 graduate of Butler High School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Magnet school newspaper and also was active in the Art Club.

He was an eight-year veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves and graduated from the Armed Forces Information and Chaplain School at Fort Slocum, near New York City. He served in the 4th Infantry Headquarters Public Information Office in Frankfurt, Germany, and at SHAPE Secretariate of NATO Headquarters in Paris, France.

While in Paris, he completed art history and appreciation classes at Palais du Louvre and was a part-time special services host at SHAPE Service Clubs and Paris U.S.O., where he escorted tours to Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands.

After attending Fenn College, now Cleveland State University, he returned to Butler as a WISR radio writer. During that time, he was active in and a board member of the Butler County Historical Society and the Butler Little Theatre.

He then traveled in the 48 contiguous states and western Canada as a Carnegie Hero Fund investigative reporter, and for 15 years he headed the fund's field staff as chief special agent at its Pittsburgh headquarters. He then became an art and copy editor for a suburban Pittsburgh pharmaceutical manufacturer.

He exhibited and received awards as a juried member of the Pittsburgh Watercolor Society. While president of the East Suburban Artists League, he founded and edited its "ESAL Newsletter." He had also been a member of the Pittsburgh World Federalists, the Institute of Pennsylvania Life and Culture, the Pennsylvania German Society and national, state and local genealogical societies.

When he retired to West Sunbury, he edited and published, "Die Schwartzlaender Nachkommen," a family history quarterly of the 1752 Franconian emigrant family.

He also had been a member of the West Sunbury Presbyterian Church, the West Sunbury American Legion, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Sons of Veterans of the Civil War, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels.

He enjoyed growing and using heirloom vegetables, herbs and flowers.

Surviving are seven sisters, Mary B. (Donald) Sutton and Nora P. (Fred) Spohn, both of Butler, Esther I. (late Thomas) Cole of Grove City, Linda S (Dennis) McCormick of West Sunbury, Gladys A. (Richard Sr.) DeMatteis of Boyers, Wilda R. (late Earl) Kenny of New Kensington and Margaret J. (Charles) Rittenhouse of Warren, Ohio. Also surviving are 31 nieces and nephews, a number of grandnieces, grandnephews, great-grandnieces and great-grandnephews, and many cousins.

A sister, Matilda R., and two brothers, James E. Jr. and Robert, preceded him in death.

<B>SWARTZLANDER</B> — There will be no visitation for Ronald Eugene "Skinny" Swartzlander, who died Thursday, April 29, 2010. Private services with burial in the family plot will be held in the Worthington Presbyterian Cemetery, Armstrong County, at the convenience of the family.Arrangements are by the <B>William F. Young Funeral Home</B>, West Sunbury.