PROVO — This New Year's Eve, Richard Losee and his six-piece band will be playing tunes — with his wife, Jo Ann, at his side, as she has been for the past 52 years.
He's not about to let age and health problems stop the music.
Even though the years are catching up with him (he's 74), he's not walking as well as in earlier times and he's reporting for dialysis three days a week, he's still going strong.
Losee was born in Los Angeles on Christmas Day and grew up in Utah, attending Jordan High School. He started playing the saxophone when he was 8 years old. His mother played the piano, her brothers played the ukulele and the banjo. The whole family gathered around and made music.
He found a hero in Johnny Dunn, who played live music on the radio.
"I was just enamored and said to myself, 'That's for me!"' Losee said. "My dad's friend had a saxophone his child wasn't using. He brought it over and gave it to me. I still have it. It's no good now, but I've got it."
He met Jo Ann when the 16-year-old beauty came in to Dayne's Music to find a band to play at her high school's junior prom.
"Was it love at first sight? Oh, yeah," he said.
He married her when she was 17 just before he shipped out to Germany to serve in the Korean War in 1954. There he was assigned to lead the Army's dance band.
"I drilled the troops for the time when the Russians would come over the Iron Curtain. I knew all of the posts and where the missiles were."
The Losees were in Germany for two years. When they returned to the United States, Jo Ann Losee and her mother, Florence H. Bullock Ragan, opened Bullock's Jewel Box. Later, they enlarged and renamed the business Bullock and Losee Jewelers.
Previously, he studied music and business at Brigham Young University and sold insurance for New England Mutual Life Insurance Company for a time. He had come to Provo to manage Dayne's Music at 19.
But his niche turned out to be in jewelry.
The Losee "guild" store became known for its focus on gem quality and customer service.
Today, they have one store in Cottontree Square that's as famous for its Lladro and Hummel collections as its diamonds.
"We do a fabulous business in Lladro. It's the finest porcelain out of Valencia, Spain," Losee said.
"What's our secret? We did everything we knew how to do. We did the retail, the buying, the merchandising, the advertising, all of it," he said. "We didn't have a corporate store or board telling us what to do or how to do it. We made all the decisions."
"We try to make people feel like kings and queens," said Jo Ann Losee.
He ran the store and successfully turned the jewelry business into an empire that's allowed him and his family not only to lead a comfortable lifestyle but to collect antiques, porcelains, rare books and classic racing and touring cars.
He owned the original 1963 James Bond 007 DB5 Aston Martin and the 1937 Phantom III Rolls-Royce car from the movie "Goldfinger."
He is also active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving as the bishop of his local ward, in the MTC branch presidency and in the stake high council.
He and his wife give of their means generously.
"I believe in the adage about give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime," Losee said.
They endowed the Richard D. and Jo Ann B. Losee Learning Resource Center at Utah Valley State College. They supported the Miss Utah Scholarship Pageant for many years and continue to donate to good causes as needed.
They were named Citizens of the Year in May 2006 by Provo city and recently received a community award from the SCERA Center of the Arts.
Richard Losee is a 40-year member of Kiwanis.
He has a saying that epitomizes his life philosophy: "If you will take the time, effort, patience and dedication to fashion your own life, just as a diamond cutter carefully shaped the facets of a diamond, your character will be as brilliant, as beautiful and as desirable as any precious gem on earth."
"Their devotion and service to their religion, community, friends and family is surpassed only by their love for each other," said their son, Richard.
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When Jo Ann Bullock Losee took off for Germany as a new bride, she took a leap of faith in love and the future.
She'd never been out of the United States before.
She was young. She spoke no German, and she was trusting her entire future to a handsome guy in a band.
After obtaining an overnight pass, borrowing a friend's car and playing two Fourth of July parades, they married just after midnight on July 4, 1954.
"We lived on the Nahe River in a one-room apartment in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. We had one bicycle. I rode on the handlebars while Dick pedaled over the cobblestones. He never dumped me, but I remember many nights in the rain."
The two years in Germany became a touchstone for them. They look back fondly at the memories.
"The best thing I ever did in my whole life was to marry my husband. Nothing else comes close," she said, looking over fondly at the man she's been married to for more than 50 years.
He echoes her sentiment.
"She never leaves my side, and I couldn't stand it if she did," Richard Losee said.
"We like being together. We're just a team," said Jo Ann Losee.
And together they've conquered the world.
They've raised three children and have 11 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.
They worked together in the jewelry business, learning as they went.
They've garnered a whole list of awards and recognition plaques for their community service, from the Provo Chamber of Commerce, the business community and civic groups.
Jo Ann Losee served as the president of the Riverside Ladies Club, won the coveted Athena Award in 1999 from the Provo-Orem Chamber of Commerce, the Provo Mayor's Award of Excellence in 1999, Business Woman of the Year in 1995 from Provo city and the first President's Medallion from UVSC.
She's also been the local ward Relief Society president and in the stake Relief Society presidency.
She served on the board for the Better Business Bureau, the UVSC Presidents Club, the UVSC Foundation, Utah Valley Symphony Supporters, Golden Heritage Society, Friends of the Freedom Festival and SCERA Foundation.
She was the Kiwanianne of the Year and founder of the Jo Ann B. Losee Scholarship awards.
The Utah County Republican Women gave her the Humanitarian Award in 1998.
They have a beautiful, Victorian-style home in the Provo riverbottoms. Today, she's a gracious hostess, happy to open their home and back yard to the Utah Valley Symphony for the Christmas Home Tour and weddings and parties.
"There's been so many I've lost count," she said. The average is three events a month
She handles countless demands, juggling business, family, civic responsibilities and the increased health struggles that come with years.
About the only thing she doesn't do is sing for her husband's band.
"People see me there with him and they think I'm the vocalist," she said. "I'm not. I'm the applauder."
One of the Losee daughters, Vanessa Alard, said her parents are unsurpassed examples of love, loyalty and devotion.
"What they have between them is very rare, very strong," Alard said.
If you go
What: Provo's First Night
Where: Provo Towne Centre Mall
When: 9-midnight, Saturday, Dec. 30
E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com