Howard Bohanon, a professional Santa, dies at 73

Howard "Howie" Bohanon didn't really plan to become Santa Claus, though his family said his personality and the sparkle in his eyes made him a perfect fit for the role even before his hair turned white.

Dressed in the bib overalls he wore for his construction job, the role continued to grow along with his beard and handlebar mustache. His wife, Mary Sue, of Myrtle Beach, S.C., didn't initially love the scruff but joked that since he had it, he might as well make good use of it.

So for the last eight Christmas seasons, Bohanon became Santa. Even when he wasn't appearing at holiday parties or working as a professional Santa at a New Jersey mall — a gig he held for a few years — he wore his red and white hat nearly every time he left the house.

"No matter the context, his whole persona was Santa," said Tracy Freitag, of Maple Grove, one of Bohanon's two daughters.

After decades of heart problems, Bohanon died of a heart attack July 24 at his Elk River home. He was 73.

Bohanon grew up in Brooklyn Park before his family moved their potato farm to Big Lake, Minn. He chose not to become a farmer himself and opted instead for the Navy, where he served two years on the destroyer USS Johnston, before launching a career in homebuilding.

Despite long work hours, Bohanon was a very involved father during Freitag's childhood in Anoka, she said. In his later years, his focus shifted even more to spending time with family.

Bohanon fully embraced the role of family jokester. Long before he became Santa, Christmases with Bohanon meant family photos of him making goofy poses in front of the Christmas tree or passing out presents with at least one holiday bow taped to his head.

"He loved to be the center of attention," Freitag said. In their 16 years of marriage, Mary Sue said, her late husband kept her laughing every day.

In the early 2000s, the couple started spending most of their year in Myrtle Beach. There, Bohanon enjoyed taking daily walks on the beach, making trips to the golf course and building custom staircases for beach houses.

"Minnesota was too cold even for our Santa," Freitag joked.

But Bohanon's love of Minnesota summers never faded. He returned each year to Elk River to teach his grandchildren to fish and golf.

Though one of his granddaughters was quick to admit that she knew he wasn't actually Father Christmas, she did have one request for him: "If you have any connections," she said back then, "can you let the real Santa know that I want an Xbox?"

Over the past several days, Freitag said, it was such stories that kept Bohanon's wife and daughters laughing. And that, she said, would make her father jolly.

Besides his wife and daughter Tracy, Bohanon is survived by daughter Lezlie, of White Bear Lake; stepchildren Brooke Moore of North Oaks and Brandon Liffrig of Otsego; a sister, Nancy Berger, of Plymouth; seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. A celebration of life will begin at 2 p.m. Friday at Rockwood's, 9100 Quaday Av. NE., Otsego.