Pat Choate

One of my favorite memories from growing up was participating year after year in the Ramona Pageant, first as an Indian on the Mountain, then as a sheep sheerer, and of course all of the volunteer hours with the boy scout troop, Troop 43.
I remember Ed Neste, Pat Larimer and myself smuggling Judy Unlund in as a sheep sheerer for a performance. We commandeered a full costume and make-up, then snuck her into the performance when she shouldn't have even been there! One of the assistant directors found out about it and was in a costume roaming the who stage trying to find her. The whole cast kept hiding her in all of the scenes. Her brother Jim was in the prop crew and his response was, "Oh My GOD!" when he found out that we had hid her in the prop room for part of the show.

After graduation from Hemet Union High School, I attended MSJC, San Diego Mesa and San Diego State as a History Major. Attended the Riverside County Sheriff's Academy and worked for the Riverside County Sheriff's Dept. for 8 years before becoming a Deputy Coroner for the Riverside County Coroners Office for 8 more years.

While at Mt. SJC I met my future wife Lily Ortega from Banning. We were married in 1969 and started our family in Cherry Valley. We moved to Indio when I transferred to the Coroner's Office. We raised our 4 daughters here and I retired from the Coroner's Office and became head of security for La Quinta High School where I spent the next 20 years working school security.

I was medically retired in 2012 due to partial loss of vision due to diabetes. I still stay active with school and youth programs seeing that I have 3 teachers for daughters. I have another daughter living here in Indio, I have 2 grandsons who have already graduated from college and are working in San Diego and Anaheim, another grandson living in Indio, a granddaughter attending UCSD, a granddaughter who is a junior in high school and a grandson who is just a little guy in preschool.