Dammm -- he was a great and gentle man
--

"Fred Blair" wrote in message
...
I knew Dick from when I was a teenager in Richardson, I lived just a few
blocks from him. My Dad worked with him at Texas Instruments and he helped
my Dad with his project of designing a homebuilt.

One of my first memories of Dick was at contests in Littlefield, TX. One
of Dick's habits was to make an effort to remember anyone that he met.
When he met you, he would put your name in his little notebook and
something about you to help him remember you. The next time he saw you,
he would call you by name; great trait.

Many years ago at a contest I was helping Dick put away his Ventus and
noticed that he saved his wing tape to be used again. He was our guest
speaker at our Christmas Banquet that year and we gave him a whole box of
3M tape. When I helped him put the Ventus away this year at Marfa he said
that he was still using tape out of that box.

Certainly soaring has lost one of it's best ambassadors and one of the
finest gentlemen you could ever meet. My prayers go out to Alice and his
other family members.

Fred Blair
Houston, TX


"Tim Hanke" wrote in message
...
Newslink:

http://www.txcn.com/sharedcontent/dw....83f9f93e.html


On Jul 23, 3:39 pm, Burt Compton - Marfa wrote:
July 23, 2008

I just received a telephone call from a reliable source that Dick
Johnson has crashed at the combined World Class / 1-26 Nationals at
Midlothian, Texas (south of Dallas). He was flying as sniffer.

Apparently he dove-in after release from tow. My source reports that
Dick has perished in the crash.

I am stunned. Nothing to speculate about now -- he is just gone.
So God Bless Alice his wife, and his family. Alice lost their son
Nels many years ago in a hang-glider accident.

Mr. Johnson was a mentor to us all, world-wide soaring legend, and a
dear friend of my family.

Burt Compton
Marfa, Texas
USA