Obituary of Eugene Juarez

On Thursday, September 7th, 2023, Eugene Juarez (Geno) passed away suddenly at his home in Savage, MN. at the age of 90 after his battle with Alzheimer’s.

Preceeded in death by mother Catalina, father Pedro and 13 siblings.

Survived by ex-wife Jane Juarez; children Patricia (Iverson), Eugene Jr.; Michael, Christina, Korina (Schultz) and Renita; 13 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren.

Geno was born in Fullerton, California, grew up in Ventura, California. Then after graduating from high school he enlisted in the Air Force in Colorado Springs, Colorado. However, he learned to fly at Luke Air Force base outside of Phoenix, AZ. After a short stint in the Air Force, he joined North Central Airlines in 1961 as a commercial airline pilot and continued flying for Republic Airlines and then Northwest Airlines retiring as a 727 captain in 1993 after 32 years of flying passenger jets. Dad would often say to us kids that his job was not work, because he loved flying and having the control of such an important responsibility of getting his passengers to and from their destinations, I (Pattie) was lucky to have been a passenger on his flights a few times! Geno was also active as an airman in the Minnesota Air National Guard flying C130s on special training missions around the globe. There were many times when he would return from his trips to Hawaii with delicious, fresh pineapple, he would most often bring us kids something special from his world travels. He retired as Lt. Colonel.

In retirement, Geno spent his winters as a snowbird in Phoenix, Arizona while spending summers in Burnsville, Minnesota. In addition to Phoenix during the winter, he would venture up to Nevada and go golfing with his buddies at one of his favorite courses, the Oasis Golf Club in Mesquite Nevada. He also would go to warmer climates like Aruba and Puerto Vallarta where Mark & I were fortunate enough to join them twice, once to celebrate his 80th birthday, another time stayed with Geno & Vicky which they vacationed with Dad & Carol (his lady) several times through out the years. One of his other passions in retirement was being the owner of racehorses that ran not only at Canterbury Downs in the Twin Cities but other tracks around the country.

Dad/Geno will be surely missed, we are grateful for the time we had with him, we will miss all of his stories of the past, he was a great story teller.

A celebration of life will be held at The American Legion on Friday October 6th at 2pm. 14521 Granada Dr., Apple Valley, MN. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Alzheimer’s Association