Santa Barbara native son Howard Andrew Cunningham passed peacefully into God’s care on March 10, 2015, at Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria.
Howard was born June 21, 1919, at Cottage Hospital, attended Hope School, Santa Barbara Junior High and graduated from Santa Barbara High School in 1938, then began working as an aircraft mechanic at Lockheed in Burbank.
He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1944-46 in Germany.
Howard worked as supervisor of Buildings & Grounds at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History for 41 years. If you’ve pressed the button on the rattlesnake exhibit there, you touched one of his many innovations.
Howard is survived by his devoted, loving grandson Christopher Benedict of Santa Barbara; son-in-law Peter Benedict of Los Alamos; nieces Barbara (David) DeGregorio of Fremont and Jennie Preston of Laguna Beach; and mourned by many friends near and far. Howard was preceded in death by his wife, Betty, of 51 years in 2006 and their only daughter, Gail, in 1982.
Everyone is invited to Howard’s Celebration of Life gathering at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 29 at Rocky Nook Park, Area One, 610 Mission Canyon Road in Santa Barbara. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made in Howard’s name to the Independent Living Resource Center or United Cerebral Palsy.