Fredrick Leslie Potter (Fred), age 74, of Winchester, VA, passed away January 24, 2017, at the Blue Ridge Hospice Inpatient Care Center. Fred was born April 9, 1942, in Glendale, California, son of the late Charles Leslie and Ruby Grisham Potter. In his youth, Fred enjoyed playing his trumpet and played with the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic and with the Phil Moore Youth Marching Band. Immediately after graduating high school, he joined the U.S. Army, then completed Basic Training and was sent to the Naval School of Music, graduating in 1961. From there, he was assigned with the 75th Army Band stationed at Fort Belvoir, VA.
While stationed in the military, Fred met his future wife, Shirley B. Fike, at the Fourth of July Fireworks on the grounds of the Washington Monument in 1962. They sat side by side to watch the fireworks, and thereafter began dating. They were married September 15, 1963, at Washington City Church of the Brethren. Fred has always called her the “bride of my youth.”
Fred received a medical retirement from the U.S. Army in 1963, and started classes at the University of Maryland, College Park, from which he received a B.S. in Economics in 1967. His Federal career began as a Personnel intern for the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in White Oak, Maryland. Through a program with the Naval Oceanographic Office, he received intensive training in every aspect of Federal personnel services, and in addition he went through a collateral program with the University of Oklahoma, from which he received an MBA in Government and Public Administration.
Fred had a 35-year career with the Federal Government, with a focus on Personnel (now called Human Resources). In addition to the Naval Ordinance Laboratory, he also worked with the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office; the Department of Justice; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). While with the ATF, Fred helped negotiate the first National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) Contract ever formulated outside of the Internal Revenue Service. He finished his career at the U.S. Customs Service. During that time, he was loaned to the State Department to represent the U.S. on a group of internationally recognized personnel experts, charged with developing a new personnel and pay system for the World Customs Organization in Brussels, Belgium. Fred retired from the Federal Service in 1997.
As a hobby, Fred and his wife enjoyed traveling. They visited most of the States of the U.S.; many islands in the Caribbean; the Canadian Rockies; Peru; the Scandinavian countries; the Baltic countries; central European countries; the Holy Land and Egypt; the Greek Islands; Russia; and China. Fred also enjoyed doing home improvement projects on the different homes they owned.
Surviving are his wife of more than 53 years, Shirley Fike Potter; daughter Lisa Behringer and her husband Mark of Bowie, Maryland; two grandchildren, Joshua and Sarah Behringer; and s sister, Caroline Scratch of Lancaster, California.
Fred has faithfully attended services as a member of the Lighthouse Baptist Church in Winchester, VA.
A funeral service for Mr. Potter will be held in the Chapel of Jones Funeral Home in Winchester on Sunday, January 29, 2017 at 2:00 p.m. Burial will be private.
The family will receive friends and relatives in the Chapel at Jones Funeral Home one hour prior to the service.

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Fredrick Leslie Potter, please visit our Heartfelt Sympathies Store.