Lieut. Dick Ericksen Killed in Airplane Accident

Because we now have new information on Lieut. Dick Ericksen, we repost this article:

And our Friend Lee  R. Christensen adds:   Dick Ericksen was one of three Mt Pleasant boys who learned to fly in 1938/39 and the three may be the first locals who learned to fly. The three, Dick, Leon Holman and Don Nielson , all 1938 high school grads took flying lessons thru Snow College sponsored by the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 which may also have paid for the Mt Pleasant airport completed 1938.

Both Dick and Don went on to become military pilots flying for the Army Air Corp . Leon was heard to say "Had I been born to fly I would have had feathers:" and was not known to have flown other than as a passenger ever again.

Dick was well known as a "flyer" around Mt Pleasant years before he took flying lessons;. In the 1930s both grocery stores, Erickson's and Johanson's, delivered their groceries to your kitchen door. Dick was the driver for Ericksons and probably started at age 14 or earlier;. State street was un paved and mostly ungraded until summer of 1938 and was the rub a dub champion of the streets universe;. Dick was well known for driving it at high speeds hoping to just brush the tops of the washboard ridges;. No one did it better than Dick;. But good as he was he frequently broke every egg in his delivery.