The official website for Carhenge, located in western Nebraska

Past Carhenge President Paul Phaneuf dies at 83

Retired Panhandle Rural Electric Membership Association Manager Paul E. Phaneuf, 83, died Sunday, June 27, 2004, at Box Butte General Hospital in Alliance, Nebraska. He had entered the care of Prairie Haven Hospice May 29 after treatment for lymphoma.

Phaneuf and his wife Margaret came to Alliance in 1950 when he became PREMA's manager. He retired in January 1987.

From 1988 through 1996, he served on the Alliance City Council and also on the Alliance planning Commission and the Board of Adjustment. He was an avid tennis player and a charter member of the Alliance Tennis Club in the 1960s, teaching tennis classes for the Alliance Public Schools, the YMCA and the tennis club.

His family hosted three exchange students and Phaneuf served as a speech and debate judge for the schools, as well. He received the Charles J. Sherlock Senior Citizen Booster Award for 2000-01 and the Alliance Times-Herald's Person of the Year for 2001.

In 1988, he and others founded Friends of Carhenge. He was the president for more than a decade. With the Friends group, he organized events that helped generate national media attention for the unusual attraction and publicity for Alliance.

For several terms, he served on the governing board of the First Presbyterian Church of Alliance and was serving on the mission committee oat the time of his death. He was also a member of the Alliance Rotary Club for more than two decades, serving as president from 1996-97 and as a member of the board.

Paul Emile Phaneuf was born November 14, 1920 in Concord, New Hampshire to Joseph Phaneuf, a printer and Ida Guilmette Phaneuf, a music teacher. He graduated from Concord High School in 1937, where he was a member of the debate team and lettered in tennis.

In 1943, he graduated from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with a BS degree and a major in electrical engineering. He and Margaret Mercer met in Cleveland, Ohio and were married there July 1, 1944, during World War II. they celebrated the 60th anniversary of their first date on Valentine's Day 2004 when they returned to Antioch college for an alumni reunion.

He served in the U.S. Navy and was discharged in 1945. Phaneuf is survived by his wife Margaret of Alliance; daughter Jean Farnsworth of Omaha, Mary Jo Jeffers of Valentine, Nebr., and Carol Farnsworth of Denver; two sons-in-law, two grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.

There was a cremation and memorial services were at 10 a.m., Friday, July 2 at the First Presbyterian Church in Alliance.

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Copyright to Friends of Carhenge, P.O. Box 464, Alliance NE 69301. Last updated: May 15, 2005.