George MacGinitie has traveled in a covered wagon and sailed the seas on a warship. Next Wednesday he will be a centurion.

MacGinitie moved to San Juan Island in 1965 and now lives at Islands' Convalescent Center in Friday Harbor. He was born in Sparta, Nebraska.

When he was 2 years old his parents loaded him and their belonging into a wagon and moved to Lynch, Nebraska. He was raised in a one-room log cabin on homestead land.

After graduating from Lynch High School he began to seek out his dream of seeing the world.

His list of jobs during the next 18 years included working on a railroad, being a telegraph operator, sailing around the world on the Navy Ship U.S.S. Denver and working as a miner, logger, lumberman, shipbuilder, skipper on a service boat, lighthouse keeper and as a "surfman" for a national Lifesaving Service.

Some of his most challenging experience occurred working for the service, which is now part of the U.S. Coast Guard. He and the crew, stationed on the rugged Oregon coast, would venture into the rough surf to assist grounded ships and rescue boats in trouble.

Having so many skills in navigation, carpentry and geology was not enough for MacGinitie. He decided at 32 to seek a college education from Fresno State College in California.

He graduated in three years, working six hours a day at the Fresno water Company.

After graduation he tried teaching for three years at a junior high school and at Fresno State. Then it was back to schcool at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University in Pacific Grove, California where he received a master's degree in marine biology.

His new-found love of marine biology was to set the course for the rest of his life. He became a pioneer of the science, establishing a marine station in 1932 at the California Institute of Technology in Corona Del Mar, California.

After setting up the stateion he stayed on as director of the Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory at Cal Tech. He took a two year sabbatical to serve as scientific director of an arctic research laboratory in Point Barrow, Alaska. He retired in 1957.

Retirement was hard for MacGinitie. He went back to work in 1962 as a consultant in marine biology at the U.S. Naval Missile Center in Point Mugu, California. His work helped preserve the natural character of Mugu Lagoon.

MacGinitie is a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and the Arctic Institute of North America.

His love for marine science led to a love for marine biologist Nettie L. Murray. They were married in 1927 and worked together on many projects. They recently celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary. She lives at their home on San Juan Island.

To top all his experience off, MacGintie also has a variety of other talents he has tested during his many years including a love of writing. he is the author of many professional articles, including a book "Natural History of Marine Animals" and a novel "The Not So Gay Nineties," an account of his boyhood in a pioneer Nebraska community.

MacGinitie is proud of his ability to appreciate and pursue the many opportunities available to Americans, said his son Walter H. MacGintie of Friday Harbor. His willingness to learn and work are qualities he is especially proud of.

Not so many persons can say they designed a salt water system for a marine lab, built a house and navigated through an Arctic fog-all in 100 years.

At 100 years old, the days are numbered for George MacGinitie, but in 1974, at age 85, he published a book for his son, other children and their parents. The book was called "WILD WORLD OF ANIMALS." In this book, he advocated that animals not be shot with guns, but rather with cameras. He further demonstrates that "WILD NATURE" is important to people and especially to children. Marine Biologists focus on invertebrates and algae, almost never on birds and mammals, so it is of note that the MacGinities discussed the seals and some birds. They admit that their study was not oriented to birds. It is therefore no surprise that Clapper Rail and Belding's Savannah Sparrow which are two endangered birds of salt marsh are not mentioned by them. But today, 40 years later, there is no excuse for not recovering these two birds at all southern California Lagoons by having more tidal flow enter the lagoon and doing more to remove non-native animals and plants.