Claude Ortiz was a Pearl Harbor shipyard worker who pitched in to save sailors trapped in the overturned hull of the battleship USS Oklahoma after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack.

But he was much more.

Ortiz was a paniola, record-holding rodeo rider, saddle maker, champion weightlifter and Navy veteran who served in the Pacific during the war. In 1945, he took sixth place in a Mr. America contest.

He and his wife, Delilah-Mae, had eight children and took in 43 others over the years from broken homes.

Claude Magpiong Ortiz died July 3. He was 87.

Veteran broadcaster Emme Tomimbang Burns said her calabash uncle "died peacefully at his Pupukea home," near the horses he loved. Tomimbang Burns said she and others "will always be so grateful for his kindness and wit."

In April, Ortiz was convalescing at the Veterans Affairs Community Living Center on the grounds of Tripler Army Medical Center after losing his lower left leg to diabetes.

Ortiz was the subject of the book "The Aloha Cowboy." He chafed at being called a "paniolo," with an "o" at the end instead of an "a." He would launch into a lecture about how the Hawai'i word for cowboy came from "Espanola," and how "paniolo" was a change made by a mistaken Mainlander who wrote about the cowboy tradition.

Ortiz is survived by his wife, Delilah-Mae; daughter, Delilah-Mae Smith; sons, Charles, Rickey and Mitchell; brothers, Everett "Bobby," Godfrey and Gaylord; sisters, Shirley, Estelle Green and Veronica Bark; 15 grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren, and four great-great-grandchildren.

Visitation is 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday at Hawaiian Memorial Park Mortuary; service 6:30 p.m. Visitation also 8:30 a.m. Wednesday at the mortuary; service 10 a.m.; burial 11 a.m. at the Hawai'i State Veterans Cemetery.