Grandfather, 40 year CMC professor, athlete, wood carver, volunteer

James Pinter-Lucke died September 17 at the age of 81 after a brief illness.

To family and friends, Jim is remembered as kind, patient, and steadfast, a role model and a mentor.

Jim was born in Portland, Oregon to Talbot Bennett and Elma Juntunen. After the death of Talbot in World War II, he was adopted by his mother’s second husband, Richard Lucke. He grew up in Portland with a view of Mt. Hood, a prescient site for him as the Boy Scouts introduced him to hiking and backpacking. He discovered mathematics as well as wrestling, winning the Portland City High School championship in his weight class in 1961. He continued to Whitman College with some notable achievements, serving as chapter chair for the Sigma Chi fraternity, meeting his first wife, Karen Carstensen, and earning a BA degree in mathematics. His love of sports and the outdoors also continued to grow, expanding into skiing, tennis, and climbing.

After earning a Ph.D. in mathematics at Duke University, he arrived at then Claremont Men’s College in 1969, where he stayed for the next 40 years. He was a valued member of CMC’s mathematics sciences department, serving as chair multiple times. In the 1980s, when it became clear that computer science was becoming a necessary part of a well-rounded education, he stepped up, retraining himself to teach computer science in addition to mathematics. During this time, he also met and married his second wife, Claudia Pinter.

Outside of work, his commitment to tennis continued. He was one of the first members of the Claremont Tennis Club and won the club singles championship in 1981.

He became an accomplished and prolific wood carver, starting with spoons while a Boy Scout counselor, and expanding to large expressive sculptures that could be a mountain from one view and a woman reclining from another. He used wood that he purchased, that was donated by family and friends, or even picked up on a corner when he saw workers cutting down a particularly interesting tree.

But it was his climbing and mountaineering that really flourished, and nothing gave him more pleasure than sharing this interest with others. He joined students and friends at Joshua Tree in the winter, Idyllwild in the fall and spring, and the Sierra Nevada in the summer. One of his greatest achievements was joining his climbing partner, David Stevenson, to ascend Alpamayo, a 19,500 foot peak in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru in 1986. He even persuaded CMC to put up a tiny climbing wall behind the bleachers in the old gym.

He hiked with his daughter in the northwest, topped Mt. Whitney with his son, and car camped in most of the western U.S. National Parks with his wife. He took a group of CMC freshmen to Yosemite, and “we encountered bears, snow, mosquitoes, and students who did not want to carry a can of beans one inch further … and through it all, Professor Pinter-Lucke was calm, encouraging, and filled with endless optimism and humor,” one student wrote. He kept up with students long after they graduated, meeting them at climbing gyms, picking them up when the Pacific Crest Trail was closed by fire, and sharing tents with them on rainy backpacking trips.

Giving back to nature was equally important. Locally, he volunteered at the California Botanic Gardens and was a member of the leadership group of the Friends of the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park. He volunteered to be chair of the American Alpine Club Southwest Section when he saw the post was empty, and organized an annual banquet and other membership activities. He was the Access Fund Southern California regional coordinator for which he received the Reese Martin Award in 2010 for his leadership and support of Southern California climbing areas. He founded a nonprofit, the Idyllwild Climbers Alliance, and instituted annual Adopt a Crag trail clean-up festivals.

He is survived by his wife, Claudia; sisters Jo and Ann; brother Karl (and Susan); sister-in-law Stephanie; daughter Lysa (and Andrew) and son Michael (and Analee); grandchildren Caeli, Mairead, Alice, and Wynn; and nephews and nieces Ben, Hannah, Eleanor, and Simon.

A celebration of life will be held on October 11. Please email clpinterlucke@gmail.com for details.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Jim’s memory to California Botanic Garden at calbg.org/support; Claremont Hills Wilderness Park at claremontca.gov/activities-recreation; the Access Fund at accessfund.org; the Nature Conservancy at nature.org/en-us; or Whitman College at whitman.edu.