Ray Wynn Toronjo
Ray Wynn Toronjo entered this world on Sunday, March 15th, 1936, and peacefully left it on Sunday, November 12th, 2023. It was Veterans Day weekend, and as a pilot in the Air Force, it must have seemed like the right time to take down his earthly tent and venture to his house in heaven.
Ray was born in Orange, Texas, to Walter Joseph Toronjo, Sr. and Blanche Bell Toronjo. As an identical twin to Jay Glynn Toronjo, he was one of ten siblings. At the early age of 12, he and Jay began their baker apprenticeships under the guidance of their father (and master baker) Walter, and worked various jobs up until highschool. For a time the family relocated to Helper, Utah where Walter had landed a job as a head baker. Jay turned out to be the better baker of the twin siblings, Ray admitted, and therefore his duties were more focused on sales and deliveries.
The family moved back to Texas in 1951 when Ray was 15 years old. In the early summer of 1951, Ray and Jay were sent ahead of the rest of the family to help their older brother Jim, ready the recently purchased Toronjo family home in Vidor. It was during that experience Ray learned about carpentry, plumbing, and electricity, the latter two of which were non-existent when the home was purchased. Ray admitted he and Jay spent more time having fun that summer, free of parents to hold them accountable, than helping their older brother fix the house up. However, it was properly prepared in time for the arrival of the rest of the family in December of that year, and it’s where they would spend many Christmases together and make other fond memories.
After graduating from Vidor High School, Ray enlisted in the Air Force in November of 1954. He became a pilot, then an instructor while stationed at the Amarillo Air Force Base in Texas. In the Air Force, he mostly flew P-80 Shooting Stars and other variants. After four years, he was honorably discharged so he could pursue his college degree. He attended Lamar University in Beaumont, TX for his undergrad degree while working at the Mobil Oil Credit Union. He finished his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Economics in January of 1964. In September of 1964 he enrolled at the University of Texas in Austin to work on a masters degree in Economics and a Minor in Real Estate.
In 1966 Ray was hired by Morrison Knudsen and began his lengthy career in the civil engineering and construction industry. Soon after being hired, he was sent to work on a large contract in Saigon, Vietnam where his company was working on rebuilding the war-torn country’s infrastructure. Ray was often given some of the toughest tasks his company had challenges completing. Many of which included issues with local suppliers. He became skilled at negotiating and bargaining with them and ensuring promises were kept. He was also good at finding materials and supplies when both were hard to come by. Being resourceful was a trait Ray developed early on during his humble beginnings and would be a useful one throughout his career. Ray quickly proved himself under difficult conditions in a country in the late stages of a lengthy war. His strong performance there set him up for a lifetime of rewarding and interesting projects abroad. Ray ended up narrowing his focus to procurement, contracts and logistics in the international construction industry. In addition to his work in Vietnam, Ray parlayed his talents into other overseas projects such as an auto manufacturing plant in Thailand, a large scale coal mine for the government of Indonesia, a geothermal energy plant in the Philippines and on oil wells in Saudi Arabia to name a few.
While in Vietnam he met his future wife Kum Cha (K.C.) Oh, who worked in the accounting department. Her family was in South Korea at the time, many of whom later emigrated to the U.S. Ray had a motorcycle while in Saigon. Afterall, it was the best way to get around in the crowded city. Once she got to know Ray and learned to put her trust in his hands, KC would ride on the back as they weaved their way around the busy city. KC likes to tell a story about getting dangerously cut off by another motorcyclist during one of their commutes to work. Ray, with KC on the back, caught up to the offender at a stoplight and knocked him and his bike over before the two raced safely on. Ray and KC fell in love and married on July 22, 1969 in Saigon surrounded by friends made while working in Vietnam together, many of whom became the lifelong type. Several of these friends would share multiple overseas assignments together, where they created other memorable experiences with each other for years to come.
In Vietnam, although Ray was there as a working expat, he was able to continue his love of flying by joining a local chapter of the French flying club. He learned how to fly most of the aircrafts available through the club and would often encounter US military planes during his flights around the Saigon area. During one of his high altitude excursions flying in a small twin propeller plane owned by the club, Ray was intentionally “bounced” around by the wake from a much larger B-52 bomber as a playful way of greeting their fellow patriot. He absolutely loved flying airplanes in Vietnam.
While they still worked and lived in Vietnam, Ray and KC welcomed Karen, their 1st of 3 children together. When she was “old enough”, Ray thought it would be fun to have Karen as a passenger on his motorcycle, and came up with a way that she could ride “safely” on the back. He installed a crate on the back passenger seat, and fashioned a seatbelt out of an old leather belt to tie around her waist and keep her from standing up. Karen would ride in the back, waving her arms around like she was in flight. When Ray and Karen weren’t riding around the city in search of her favorite snack (dried squid from the market), the three of them would go to the zoo (elephants were her favorite and still are), or take a cruise down the river on a riverboat.
Besides being a pilot and a flight instructor, Ray was also a mechanic, and may have even fashioned himself a plane or a train or some fancy car to take this final heavenly trip. While in Vietnam he once rented a small engine plane with KC and flew them high up into the clouds. He told her he wished he could just keep flying and never come back down. His love for flying was among many of the joys and interests he had in life. He was a voracious reader, loved music and was always singing or humming a tune, something from Willie Nelson or Meatloaf, his taste was wide ranging. He loved movies and after retiring, he would spend his days and sometimes nights, writing screenplays, a few of which won some competitions, including the Sun Valley Film Festival. Ray was also a lifelong coin collector. He started collecting coins while working at the Mobil Oil Credit Union during his years as an undergrad. He not only collected US coins, but also foreign, of which he had great access to through his many years working overseas. He spent a lot of time with his grandchildren educating them about coin collecting and would later pass his collection on to them.
Ray’s career took him everywhere in the world, from Saigon, Vietnam to Papua New Guinea to Saudi Arabia, where he once accidentally hit a camel while driving in a desert sand storm. He nervously kept driving after striking the camel due to fear of retribution but soon turned around and drove back to the scene of the accident only to find a patch of fur left on the ground and his bumper but no camel. On longer projects, he took his family with him. Their travels included 4 years in the Netherlands and 4 years in Indonesia. He and his son Travis worked together on a project in Russia, and for a time he and K.C. lived in the Philippines and Thailand, where their children would visit them on vacation. Throughout these worldly adventures, Boise, Idaho was a constant, so when Ray officially retired, he and K.C. made it their permanent home.
Ray had so many stories to tell and his family thinks they only heard half of them. While battling a lengthy illness, Dad talked to his family often about taking a trip, one that only he would be going on, and that is what he did on an early Sunday morning.
Ray is survived by his wife Kum Cha Toronjo, daughter Karen Headings, sons Travis and DarinToronjo, twin brother Jay Toronjo, sister Eileen Sarver, sister Gayle Keramian, andbrother Dale Toronjo, and many beloved nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. Even though he was a twin, he was one of a kind, and will be missed by so many of his friends and family.
Donations in Ray’s name can be made to the Boise Rescue Mission ( https://boiserm.org/donate/ ), helping to support homeless veterans in the Treasure Valley. His passion was helping his fellow servicemen in their times of need.
A memorial service will be held at Bowman Funeral Parlor (10254 W. Carlton Bay Dr, Boise, Idaho) on February 9, 2024, at 11 a.m.