The Gate City recently lost three of its most iconic residents.

Anne Fry, owner of Annie Hall’s Vintage Boutique, made sure lack of finances never stood in the way of a local girl taking home a fabulous, vintage prom dress for the big dance.

Brad Burtenshaw was a local restaurateur with a big heart who viewed life as a celebration and considered his friends and employees to be family.

Joe Jensen was an ardent supporter of Idaho State University. His name will live on in the Jensen Grand Concert Hall within the Stephens Performing Arts Center.

Anne Fry

It’s become common to see girls wearing dresses from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s at Pocatello proms, thanks to Fry. The boutique owner died Tuesday at 69 years old, just seven weeks after being diagnosed with brain cancer.

Fry’s daughter, Merrillee Wells, explained her mother introduced countless local girls to dresses from bygone eras. Not surprisingly to Wells, a large contingent of girls wearing dresses that were in style more than a half a century ago attended Fry’s celebration of life on Thursday.

“When somebody wanted new she would be like, ‘No you don’t. They’re ugly,’” Wells said.

Fry was often known to discount dresses — or even give them away — to girls whose families were tight on finances. She once provided vintage prom dresses for a large group of local special education students, Wells said.

Wells said her mother also had a knack for recruiting local girls to become her dress models, helping them grow in confidence. Fry and her models regularly hosted fashion shows for area nursing homes and senior living centers. She’d find them the perfect dress, pin up their hair and place them in the spotlight.

“She made these young girls feel so fabulous. She’d put Frank Sinatra on and they would have fashion shows,” Wells said.

Wells said her mother offered candid advice to the many people who viewed her as a mother figure. She also never sought any credit for her many good deeds, Wells said.

Fry worked for more than 30 years as a claims services manager at Farmers Insurance before retiring in 2009. The following year, she started buying vintage dresses from thrift shops wherever she traveled, cleaning and steaming them to mint condition. She opened her boutique in the 800 block of S. First Avenue. Wells said family friends have been running the shop recently, but it’s unclear what the future holds for the boutique.

Fry and her husband Merrill celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on the Saturday before she died. She also leaves behind Wells, an emergency room director and nurse at Steele Memorial Hospital in Salmon, and a son, Curtis Fry, who owns a business in Garden Valley.

“Her family was everything,” Wells said.

Brad Burtenshaw

When Samantha Kestler was giving birth to her daughter last August, her father, Brad Burtenshaw, refused to let the COVID-19 pandemic spoil an opportunity to celebrate with her — or at least near her.

He threw a tailgate party in the hospital parking lot.

“He wanted to be at every event for his kids and his grandkids,” Kestler said. “He’d celebrate your successes and he’d help you if you failed.”

Brad Burtenshaw died Thursday at age 61, about five months after being diagnosed with brain cancer. He owned Sandbagger’s Bar & Grill, 296 Yellowstone Ave., Mama Inez Mexican Restaurant, 390 Yellowstone Ave., and Mama Inez Express, 140 W. Chubbuck Road.

“I looked at Brad as an ambassador. He embodied business and friendship. He had so many circles and so many realms of customers and friends, and he made that community feel like family,” said his sister-in-law, Kim Thronson. “I looked at Baggers and Mama’s as Pocatello’s version of Cheers. It’s where everybody knows your name.”

Brad Burtenshaw earned a degree in laser engineering and worked for 11 years for Hughes Aircraft in Carlsbad, California. In 1992, after the company announced plans to lay off workers, he cashed in his 401K and bought the Mama Inez in Jackson, Wyoming.

He sold the Wyoming restaurant and bought the Pocatello Mama Inez in 1994. Though he wasn’t particularly skilled as a cook, his son, Brandon Burtenshaw, said he was well positioned to succeed in the dining industry because he was a “leader of people.”

“His employees were like his kids,” Brandon Burtenshaw said. “We’ve got hostesses working there now whose moms worked there when they were going through college.”

His son Andy Burtenshaw said his father’s businesses have always been active in the community. They’ve sponsored several Little League Baseball teams, as well as the Gate City Grays and other sports teams. He said his father was a strong supporter of both ISU — where Andy Burtenshaw played on the Bengals football team — and Pocatello High School. For PHS, Brad Burtenshaw helped lead the effort to fund a new high school weight room.

Andy Burtenshaw believes his father’s outgoing personality and generosity helped make his restaurants among Pocatello’s most popular gathering places.

“He created such a following. He had 150 ‘best friends,’” Andy Burtenshaw said. “People stopped by to see Brad Burtenshaw and the atmosphere he created in those businesses.”

Joe Jensen

The Jensen Grand Concert Hall within the Stephens Performing Arts Center seats up to 1,200 patrons.

The hall is named for Joe Jensen, an avid supporter of ISU who died on Wednesday of pancreatic cancer, and his late wife Cheryl, who died in the spring 2008. Joe Jensen was 79.

Joe Jensen was active in the performing arts throughout his life, according to his brother, Randy Jensen. Randy Jensen told the Journal via email that his brother severely burned his hands on a wood stove at age 3 and badly cut his hands on a glass bottle at age 6. Despite the injuries, however, he continued with piano lessons and went on to become an accomplished pianist.

“My favorite song that he plays is Autumn Leaves, and he plays it as well as John Williams,” Randy Jensen said in the email.

The Stephens Center, which opened in 2004, is renowned as one of the best performing arts centers at any U.S. college campus, Randy Jensen noted.

While attending high school in Pocatello, Joe Jensen worked for Paramount Cleaners and then as a chef at the Bannock Hotel, according to his brother. He graduated from ISU in 1966, after finishing a mission to France with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

While at ISU, he served as senior class president and was active in many campus organizations. In 1968, he graduated with a masters of business administration from Dartmouth College. He then accepted a position with Pfizer Inc., an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation. Joe Jensen held positions with Pfizer in New York, London, Brussels, Portugal, North Africa and India before retiring as a vice president.

For the past 20 years, he served on the ISU Foundation Board of Directors, including a term as president. He was also a chair of the Natural Heritage Project Advisory Board and helped grow the Idaho Museum of Natural History.

This spring, he was awarded the ISU President’s Medallion.

“His lifelong commitment and dedication to Idaho State is unmatched,” ISU President Kevin Satterlee said in a Journal article about the award. “As busy as Joe was in life, for 20 years, Joe traveled to Pocatello twice a year for foundation board meetings.”

He is survived by six brothers and sisters, four children and 13 grandchildren.