Ronald Wayne Whitney

Ronald Wayne Whitney

May 12, 1938—May 31, 2026

Ronald Wayne Whitney was born on May 12, 1938, in Lompoc, California, to Fay and Esther Whitney. Ron grew up in California’s Central Valley, where his parents eventually settled in Reedley. From an early age, Ron showed an interest in and aptitude for music. He remembered sitting in church between the bass voice of his father and the alto voice of his mother, singing harmonies on the hymns. After high school and two years at Reedley Junior College, Ron finished his Bachelor of Arts in Music with an emphasis in choral conducting at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California. During orientation week of his second year at Oxy, Ron met a captivating viola player in the cafeteria line. He wanted to get to know her better, but he couldn’t remember her name! So he went to her dorm and took a guess. He guessed wrong. He had asked for the woman’s roommate instead, one Mary Margaret Fry. He soon discovered the wisdom of his mistake. Sharing a love of music was just one beautiful facet of their relationship.

Ron graduated from Oxy in 1961, and planned to teach high school music in Hawaii. Instead, he was drafted and spent the next two years playing trombone in the Army band at Fort Ord. Ron and Mary were married in 1963 in Monterey Park, and with an honorable discharge in his pocket and a new wife on his arm, he moved to Ontario and started teaching. He soon found he wasn’t ideally suited for teaching, so he began work on his Master of Arts in Church Music in 1965. That degree was not to be. With an expanding family (Sara was born in 1966) and some uncertainty of where the degree would lead, he veered into the insurance industry as an underwriter for Aetna, and the family moved to San Bernardino. During this time, he lived his vocation serving as choir director at Del Rosa Methodist Church and Lutheran Church of Our Savior.

Nine years and another daughter later (Alison was born in 1968), Ron took a job with Fireman’s Fund in San Francisco as a systems analyst, and the family moved to Novato, California. There, they purchased a home in which he and Mary lived until 2025, when they moved to Oakmont Gardens in Santa Rosa.

In Novato, Ron served as adult choir director at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, played bass trombone in the Stardusters big band, sang with the Marin Symphony Chorus, and, with Mary and some other friends, established a choral group in San Francisco called The Mastersingers.

Ron was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2023, which sapped his energy and left him virtually homebound. Two more cancers in the years that followed made it clear that he wouldn’t achieve his goal of picking up his trombone again to play jazz.

Ron died shortly after being diagnosed with colon cancer, but his legacy lives on in this deeply Lutheran family of faith that loves music, lovesto sing, plays chess and computer games, sings harmony with the hymns in worship, and is comforted by the idea of him singing with the angels!

Ron is survived by his wife of 62 years, Mary Whitney; his sister, Marilyn Meadors; his daughters, Sara (Michael) Serwacki and Alison (Kent) Shane; and grandchildren Emily Shane (Adam Freemantle), Braeden Serwacki, Ryan Shane, and Makaela Serwacki (Omar Bartra).

A service will be held at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Novato on June 23 at 2pm, with the Reverend Paul J. Gravrock officiating. The family thanks Lafferty & Smith Mortuary in Santa Rosa for their kindness and care as we made these final arrangements. In lieu of flowers, donations to Poulsbo First Lutheran Church, where the Shanes are pastors and the Serwackis are members will go toward the music ministries.

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Ronald Wayne Whitney, please visit our floral store.