Jack Pruzan, Cable-TV Pioneer

Jack Pruzan made the most of the post-World War II boom years.

Cable was his baby and he nurtured it well, providing entire cable-TV set-up systems to communities throughout the West. "He won awards and was written up in the business press as a pioneer in the cable industry," said his son, Herb Pruzan of Seattle.

"But his main concerns were his garden, his family, and fishing. He had gone salmon fishing all over Elliott Bay and Puget Sound. He was pretty good, too."

Mr. Pruzan died Tuesday, Dec. 10, of pneumonia. He was 89.

The Seattle native wanted to be an artist or a track star. He was a pole vaulter at Garfield High School, but he was better at art, illustrating the high-school annual along with classmate Kenneth Callahan. One of Pruzan's self-portraits was displayed last year at the Capitol Museum in Olympia.

By 1930, newly wed and in need of a job, he became a contract agent for Seattle City Light. In that selling and debt-collecting job for 15 years, he got to know many people of Italian and Japanese heritage in Seattle's Rainier Valley.

"That's when he learned his gardening," said his son. "During the war he had a victory garden and chickens. One of his great joys was bringing in zucchini or other vegetables early in the morning and putting them on employees' desks."

Mr. Pruzan quit his City Light job and ran a tavern in 1945, but gave it up after a robbery. He went into buying and selling surplus goods, specializing in power-line and communications equipment, and founded Jack Pruzan Co. in 1948.

"In 1949, the first cable-TV system in the West was built in Astoria, Ore.," said his son. "It went bankrupt, but was rescued by a Seattle man who put in systems in Aberdeen and Seattle. Jack Pruzan was a supplier and investor in the industry when the going was rough for small businesses."

Mr. Pruzan put together entire cable systems so districts did not have to buy some supplies here and others there. He remained as a consultant even after selling the company in 1969.

Other survivors include his wife of 66 years, Grace Pruzan, and daughter, Hermine Pruzan of Mercer Island, and four grandchildren.

Services were to be at 11 a.m. today at Butterworth's Arthur A. Wright Funeral Home, 520 W. Raye St. Memorials may be made to any of his favorite groups, including the Junior Chamber of Commerce, the Masonic Lodge, B'nai B'rith, Temple De Hirsch Sinai, or Caroline Kline Galland Home.