Daily Nonpareil: Spirit of Courage Award Recipients

Fun-loving Rod Courtier enjoys lifting other people’s spirits. Few would guess that at 65, Rod has battled emphysema and lung cancer.

Raised in Hastings, he met his future wife, Sue, in fourth grade. He began his 21-year Army career at 17 thanks to a convincing lie about his age. After his second tour in Vietnam, he and Sue married in 1972.

While they were stationed in Panama, they adopted their son, Jesse, now a radiologist who lives in California with his wife and daughter.

Rod and the other Methodist Jennie Edmundson Spirit of Courage honoress were profiled in this Daily Nonpareil feature prior to the Spirit of Courage festivities Aug. 8-9.