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As It Was: Olympic Fencer Moves to Klamath Falls in 1984

An Olympic fencing competitor, Jan York, moved to Klamath Falls, Ore., in 1984 when her husband, Charles Romary relocated his Water Systems company there.
Born in Palo Alto, Calif., York developed a love for the sport as a girl and competed at the University of Southern California in the 1940s.  She trained with Ralph Faulkner, a fencing master and instructor to actors Errol Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Basil Rathbone.

York was the first American woman to compete in six Olympic Games from 1948 through 1968.  She never won an Olympic medal, but was in fourth place in 1952 and 1956.  She married Romary in 1953.

York won 10 U.S. foil championships and a gold medal in the 1967 Pan-American Games.  At her last Olympics in Mexico City, in 1968, she was the first woman ever to carry the U. S. flag.  “I felt like the most special person in the world,” she said in a 1988 interview with Newsday. 

After the Olympics, York served as the 1976 Olympic women’s administrator and in 1984 as the Los Angeles Olympics commissioner of fencing.  She was inducted into the U.S. Fencing Association Hall of Fame in the 1970s.
 

Sources: "Jan York-Romary Bio, Stats and Results." SR Olympic Sports, www.sports-reference.com › OLY Home › Athletes; "Janice Lee Romary, 79; fencer competed in 6 Olympic Games." LA Times, 5 June 2007, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jun-05-me-romary5-story.html; Walker, Jade. "Jan Romary/ The Blog of Death." The Blog of Death, 16 June 2007, www.blogofdeath.com/2007/06/16/jan-romary/; Perez, Chris. "People." Water Conditioning and Purification Magazine, 2 Apr. 2015, pp. 2-3, www.wcponline.com/2015/04/02/people-april-2015/.

Luana (Loffer) Corbin graduated from Southern Oregon College, majoring in Elementary Education.  The summer after graduation she was hired to teach at Ruch Elementary, where she taught for 32 years. After retiring, Corbin worked for Lifetouch School Photography and then returned to Ruch as an aide helping with reading instruction and at the library.  More recently, she has volunteered at South Medford High.