CRESWELL – Predictably, Dick Heyman was ornery to the very end.
Speaking on Monday at Heyman’s Celebration of Life ceremony at Hobby Field, Floyd Bard, President of the Emerald Empire Chapter of the Military Officers Association of America, said he visited with Heyman on the day before he passed.
“I went to his room, and I asked him why he had a cell phone in his hand,” Bard said. “He said, ‘I can’t get the damn thing to work.’”
“Why do you need to use the phone,” Bard asked him.
“I’m trying to call Barbara,” Richard said. Barbara was just out front with their son Martin.
“As a member of MOAA and being a veteran, Dick Heyman was the greatest fighter pilot in the world, as far as I’m concerned, before and after he served, what he did for the city council, and what he did for Creswell. He was one of a kind. We at MOAA talk about him all the time.”
‘Dick’s Day’ every year
This wasn’t the business-as-usual Memorial Day celebration in Creswell. There was the annual gathering at South 1st St. to honor veterans.
Something was different, though.
American flags were flying all up and down Main Street, as Creswell Mayor Nick Smith, in a proclamation, announced that every May 25 – Dick’s birthday – will be recognized as “Col. Richard ‘Dick’ Heyman Jr. Day” in the City of Creswell. Heyman would have been 102 on Saturday.
‘I also want to encourage all residents to honor his life, reflect on his service and recognize the enduring importance of courage, humility and commitment to community,” Smith’s proclamation read.
As family and friends of Heyman paid their final respects at a Celebration of Life ceremony on Monday at Hobby Field, it was clear that the community had lost not only a great person. It has lost a driver of one of our best generations.
“It’s been one of my greatest pleasures to be able to meet him,” said Hobby Field airport manager Shelley Humble, who hosted Saturday’s ceremony. “I met him when he was on city council and I was an employee, and he and council didn’t always see eye-to-eye, so I was kind of in the crosshairs at times. But after he left council, and I got to see him outside of being a councilor, he was such a gem. We needed him for another 10-15 years. He was smart, he was sharp, he was kind. Willing to do anything, I could ask him for something, and he would get it. Barb the same way. They remind me of Americana, how I wish we could go back to. They were neighbors, they were friends. They looked out for each other and their fellow neighbors. They ingratiated themselves into the town and they made sure they were a part of it. …
They kind of broke a mold when he passed. We lost something major in this town. We lost an era with him.”
‘Never the same story twice’
Darrin Humble, Shelley’s husband, who had the privilege of flying with Heyman many times, presented a fascinating slideshow during the ceremony, highlighting Heyman’s favorite airplanes and some of the most notable adventures of his illustrious career.
For instance, he reminded the audience of Bed-Check Charlie, which was later written about and then loosely used by the TV show MASH in Season 2, Episode 2, called 5 O’Clock Charlie.
“I was always around World War II veterans growing up, but never a fighter pilot, so he was always a treat,” Darrin said. “Listening to him, you think you’re getting a history lesson, but you’re really just finding out about his experiences, and he was very poetic in the way he told stories.”
On D-Day, 1944, Richard made four flights. He probably had about 20 versions of what happened that day – and that doesn’t mean some aren’t true. Some are just seen through a different lens.
“He never told the same story twice,” Darrin said. “The last time he talked about D-Day he flew four times that day, and on his last time he just wanted to give his perspective on what he was seeing.”
Heyman certainly deserves all of this praise and adulation, but he always shied away from it. He said he was just doing his job.
“He was very humble,” Bard said. “He said he was lucky because God blessed him to be able to do all the things he wanted to do.
When arrangements were made to have Dick honored at the University of Oregon’s spring football game two years ago, Barbara escorted him onto the field.
“When we honored him he lit up like a beacon,” Bard said. “It probably knocked 20-30 years off his life, he was so appreciative of being honored and having Barbara there with him.”
