Prescott Loring Beals was born October 10, 1933, in the town of Jalna, in the, then, Princely State of Hyderabad, now Telangana, in South Central India. He would be pleased at that little bit of trivia, since he was known as the Trivia King. He died in Boise, Idaho on April 13, 2025, 91 years of age.
He was the son of Prescott Loring Beals Sr and Bessie Littlejohn Beals, who were Nazarene missionaries to India. Beginning at age 6, he grew up in British Boarding schools for boys 10 months out of the year. His family returned to America when he was 14. He graduated from High School and began college the same year, pedaling his bicycle to the High School for a morning class of American Government, which had never been taught in the British schools, attending college classes the rest of the day. He graduated from and became a professor of Chemistry at Northwest Nazarene College. It was there that he met and married one of his students, Virginia (Jen) Shoemaker. They were married just shy of 68 years. They had two children, Shelley and Scott.
Loring was a student of many disciplines, held many interests and traveled extensively. After completing his master’s degree in Baltimore, Maryland, he settled into a career of toxicology, managing laboratories at St. Alphonsus Hospital in Boise, the Boise Veteran’s Hospital, as well as a hospital lab in Portland Oregon. He was also a forensic toxicologist and enjoyed being called upon to testify in countless cases. Some of his testimony was recorded in Supreme Court cases.
He was preceded in death by his parents. Survived by his loving wife, Jen of Boise, Idaho, daughter Shelley and Son in law Lyle Dean, of Boise, son Scott of Boise, brother Paul Beals of Huntsville, Alabama, two grandsons, Travis Dean, of Nampa, Idaho, Taylor Dean and wife Tiffany of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and 6 great grandchildren, Bekah, Greg, Carolyn and Kay Dean of Meridian, Idaho. Hudson and Harrison Dean of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.