Longtime Tri City resident and Pasco businessman David A. Gallant died peacefully at his Burbank area home of 54 years on January 18, 2007 surrounded by his family. He was 89. Born in 1917 in Milford, Massachusetts, his father and mother moved with David, his brother Francis and sister Norma to Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1918. There, hard economic times blended with stern French -Scotch work ethic to form a character of honesty, frugality and industriousness that served him well. Blessed Sacrament Elementary, Warren G. Harding High School and Franklin University in Washington D.C. where he earned a Bachelor?s degree in Public Accounting in 1938 launched David on an unlikely trajectory. It ended Thursday night in the home he built for his young family in a place he settled out of devotion to his beloved wife, Mary. He liked to say that the two most unlikely outcomes in his life were emerging unscathed after falling into the path of an oncoming streetcar as a toddler and landing in Pasco as an adult. After college graduation David took the civil service exam, applied and was accepted in the FBI?s training program where he began as a fingerprint technician. When he met the minimum age requirement of 25 for agent training, he applied and was accepted, graduating as a Special Agent of the FBI at an exciting time in our country?s history. Following interesting postings in Los Angeles and Washington D.C. it was in Seattle that he met a fellow FBI employee, Pasco native Mary Horrigan, who was to become his wife of 49 years. As World War II ground on David followed his career track into Army OCS at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was commissioned as an Army officer, married Mary and received orders for Europe where his FBI training was valued in the Criminal Investigation Division of the U.S. Army. First posting was Antwerp where Mary joined him. Then Paris for a year, followed by four years in Munich where his attachment to the Office of Military Government / Bavaria yielded friendships and contacts that remain important to our family to this day. As the Allied Occupation wound down, the path led back to the States and ultimately to Pasco. In his sardonic moments he would comment that the 1951 Tri Cities looked much like the Third World postings he had been offered by the State Department. Nevertheless, it was Mary?s hometown so he embraced the new setting and built a successful life of family, community and business. Active from the start at community building he served as president of the Pasco Chamber of Commerce, Pasco Waterfollies, Columbia Basin Development League, Horse Heaven Irrigation, the Blue Mountain Council of the Boy Scouts of America and The Horrigan Foundation, a philanthropic entity which he grew over 20 times in size during his tenure, served on more boards than we can count, twice ran for public office, served as a Democratic State Committeeman, founded a private family investment company as well as a property and casualty insurance agency now 50 years old, took an interest in the wine business, parented generously, read avidly, traveled widely, laughed freely, counseled wisely and trusted deeply in the power of prayer and compound interest. The journey of David?s life will always be a model for his children and grandchildren. Devout in his Catholic faith, patriotic in service to his country, ever optimistic and unswerving in his love of family he holds a place in our hearts that will never fade. David was preceded in death by his beloved wife Mary in 1994 and is survived by his daughter Theresa, son-in-law Edward Bulchis and their daughters Anne, Laura and Emily, his son Bart, daughter-in-law Hilke and their daughters Mary and Bridget. If you wish, remembrances may be made to the Mary H. and David A. Gallant Endowed Scholarship at Holy Names Academy, 728 21st Ave. E. Seattle, WA 98112 or to the Franklin County Historical Society Museum, 305 North 4th Ave. Pasco, WA 99301