A lot of people who knew our family when Richard was alive are curious what happened to us after he died. This is a short narrative I wrote (from my perspective) about what happend.
I was only 3, nearly 4, when the crash happened so it took a while before I understood what we had really lost and what that meant for our lives.
We stayed in our house in Charleston, Arkansas for the next few years. I started school where my older brother, Jason already went. Eventually my mom was introduced to a man named Shelly Wyers from Mulberry Arkansas. Shelly was a rodeo bull-rider and brick mason. He had two kids of similar ages to Jason and I from a previous marriage but they lived with their mom in Texas. Shelly and Flo started dating and were soon married and expecting a new child: my little brother, Andrew.
Going through photos from this time I can say that support for our family was ever-present; from people like HC, Flo's brother (my uncle) Anthony, and my grandparents on my mom's side. I have happy memories from this time spending one or two weekends per month in Little Rock or Malvern with my grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles.
After about 3 more years in Charleston we bought a place on a dirt road, outside Mulberry at the crest of a hill on 40 acres and built a turkey farm there. Shelly remodeled the house down to the studs himself and then built the 3 huge turkey houses mostly on his own. His ability to design and build and make nearly anything he could imagine is something he had in common with my Dad. He’s a master maker in wood, metal and about anything else he puts his hands on.
I grew up wandering in fields and woods and riding bikes with my brothers. We had a pretty boring, stable, uneventful childhood in the best way. My brothers and I were very into computers, video games and early pre-internet computer bulletin boards. All three of us were good at drawing and I took it further designing t-shirts, painting school murals and entering my work into local competitions. My mom spent time doing some community college computer training and ended up working for the literacy council, chamber of commerce, and Bank of the Ozarks and, of course, running the books for the farm. We had a huge garden for years and eventually started raising beef cattle in addition to the turkey operation. Shelly and Flo both still live there and still run the farm.
After graduating high school as salutatorian, Jason started college at Arkansas Tech and finished his degree at University of Arkansas Fort Smith in Computer Science. He now works as an IT manager for the federal courts system in Little Rock where he lives with his wife and two boys. He's into cycling and radio controlled planes.
After also graduating salutatorian, I started and finished at Ouachita Baptist University with a double major in Biblical Studies and Philosophy. I met my wife there and we got married after graduation. We spent a year abroad teaching English in Indonesia before returning to Arkansas to have our first daughter. I worked as hospital chaplain for a couple of years at Baptist Health hospital in Little Rock. Later, we moved to California for me to pursue graduate studies at Fuller Seminary where we had 2 more girls and I began also began working in tech as Software Designer helping schools like Fuller move more of their education online. 6 years ago our youngest was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and I got involved in creating software to automate insulin delivery and reduce the burden of care. I'm still engaged in this work. We still live in Pasadena, California. Like my dad, I am forever driven to learn new ways to make things with my hands. I still draw, paint and take photos quite a bit. I started woodworking building furniture we needed for our house about a decade ago and it's how I fill most weekends. I discovered a barn full of lumber my grandfather had set aside from the best trees that came through his sawmill. I have been enjoying finding projects worthy of this wood that, by all acccounts, he and my dad had planned to work together when he retired. He never got to due to illness. But I have taken that baton.
After also graduating salutatorian, Andrew started at John Brown University and finished at UAFS in medical laboratory science and later completed an additional bachelors from University of Arkansas in electrical engineering. He lives in Fayetteville with his wife and cats where he works as an engineer and data analyst.
During college I started the long process of trying to get the accident report using foia requests. I also spent a lot of time in Magnet Cove, where my dad grew up. Melody, my then girlfriend, now wife, worked as a youth pastor there so we ran into people quite a bit who knew my parents.
Hearing stories of what my dad was like is so valuable to me. The more I learn about who he was and what he was like, the more I make sense to myself. I'm always eager to hear more stories that people remember because it makes him more real to me. People are sometimes reluctant to share stories that don't paint him in the best possible light. But I assure you, that these stories often help me understand him even better.
So, if you have any memories you would like to share, I'm always up to hear them.
You can send me an email, text or call. Whatever is easy for you.
[email protected] cell: 501-749-6777