Airport planning ceremony to honor Parker

    Andrews – Western Carolina Regional Airport is missing a smiling face that has been there almost daily for more than 70 years.
    Richard Parker, a longtime supporter of the airport, passed away Thursday at 93 years old.
    “It’s kinda like missing your left hand,” airport manager Gayland Trull said. “He’s dearly missed.”
    Trull said Parker was like a father to him, and even got him started in flying in the 1970s.
    “He was very instrumental in my career,” said Trull, a former airline pilot. “He’s been a great friend for years.”
    Trull said Parker was a man who never met a stranger. He loved kids and sharing his love of flying.
    The airport will honor Parker with a ceremony at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 14. They plan to have as many planes as possible flying above the Andrews Valley in his honor as Trull personally spreads Parker’s ashes.
    One of Parker’s favorites, The Steve Jordan Band, is scheduled to perform during the ceremony. Everyone is welcome to attend.
    “We’re going to send him out in style,” Trull said. “As Richard would say, ‘The more, the merrier.’ ”
    Parker started hanging out at the airport when it opened in 1947 as Wood Field with a grass runway.
    “I’ve known him all my life,” said Ed Wood, whose father ran the original airport. “Richard was like an uncle to me early on.”
    Wood remembered Parker as a jovial person. Once when Wood was a teenager, Parker took him up in a Piper Cub airplane and flew in a loop over the cornfield – something his father would have never done with him.
    “I remember looking up and seeing the corn rows,” Wood said. “And I thought that was pretty cool.”
    Parker gave the same flight experience to Wood’s brother, Keith.
    “It was pretty fun,” Keith Wood said, remembering that it may have been the first time he had ever flown upside down. “He was all the time doing stuff like that.”
    He said Parker and his father were friends, and Parker was someone his father could rely on.
    “The airport was his special baby,” Ed Wood said. “He wanted to see it prosper and grow.”
    In the 1960s, Parker was appointed by the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners to be a member of an advisory board to study the need for a paved runway and the future of the airport. In 2017, the airport dedicated a terminal to him for his “70 years of continuous support, commitment and outstanding service.”
    Parker was a U.S. Navy veteran who served in both World War II and the Korean War. He later became a corporate pilot for Phillips & Jordan. Over the years, he taught many how to fly.
    One of those people was Charles West of Murphy. West knew Parker ever since he was a little boy, and when he was 19 years old Parker taught him how to fly.
    “I looked up to him because he was very good at what he did,” West said. “He was a very good encourager.”
    He said Parker was always there for him and willing to help others in their time of need, too.
    “He tried to help a lot of people,” West said. “He wasn’t a selfish person.”
    Parker is survived by his wife, Iris, as well as a stepdaughter and her family. His funeral was held Sunday.