He came from a family that crossed a continent in covered wagons. Eighty-one years later, the story he left behind was about staying close to the people he loved.
Pioneer Stock
Val was the fifth of six children born to Valente Francis Dolcini and June Plant Dolcini, both former postmasters of Davis. His forbearers had come overland in covered wagons and settled in Davisville in 1868, making the Dolcinis one of the town's true pioneer families.
He grew up in the family home that still sits at the corner of 6th and G Streets, attending Davis public schools alongside his brother and sisters. By 1953 he was student body president of Davis High School, the kind of kid the whole town seemed to know. From there he went on to San Francisco State University, where he earned a degree in Communications.
Valente Forrest Dolcini
Forty Years of Service
After college, Val built a career with the state of California that stretched nearly four decades. He moved through a number of state agencies before finishing as Chief Training Officer at the Department of Parks and Recreation.
It was work that left a mark far beyond his own desk. He helped develop the training curriculum and protocols for state park rangers across all of California, shaping how the people who protect the state's wild places learned to do their jobs.
Closer to home, he kept showing up. Over the years he served on the Yolo County Grand Jury, the Yolo County Cemetery District Board, the St. James Parish Council, and a long list of other local boards and commissions. Davis was his town, and he treated it that way.
That commitment took real work. When the parish's building costs ballooned through the inflation of the 1970s, an early fund drive proved short of the mark, and in 1975 a second campaign was launched under Clarence Barry and Val. Together they brought in pledges of nearly $300,000, the kind of quiet, unglamorous effort that keeps a community standing.
He loved the stage, both the lights of it and the hush of the seats before a show began.
A Man of the Theater
Val was happiest near a stage. He performed in and attended countless productions, the JayRob Theater in Sacramento, the Davis Comic Opera Company, the Palms Playhouse in Davis. In later years, he and Marge spent many evenings with friends at the B Street Theater in Sacramento.
When the chance came, they went bigger: trips to New York City and San Francisco for Broadway, and one last memorable excursion to a play at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, surrounded by family. He loved sports and politics and travel and his wide circle of friends, but the theater was where his delight always seemed to live.
Marge
He and Marge married in 1961. What followed was 53 years of marriage, a partnership the two of them carried with deep affection right to the very end.
For all his work and his community roles and his nights at the theater, Val measured his life by something simpler. His greatest accomplishment, the one he came back to, was being a husband and a father. Nothing made him happier than time spent with his wife, his children, and their families.