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Robert Dennis (Denny) Hayward, April 20, 1944 --
August 14, 2023, RIP.
Denny passed away on Monday, August 14th from a rare
vascular condition called Wegener's Disease, or GPA. (See
Wikipedia for details.) He is survived by his wife Cheryl,
his daughter Jennifer, granddaughter Amber, and brother
Wes. Den was born in Denver, CO, but grew up in
Richland, WA. He graduated from high school in 1962,
and then from college in 1967 with double majors in business and
forestry from Washington State University. He
continued to obtain an MBA, also from WSU, in Wood Products
Marketing. Upon graduation in 1969, he was
drafted into the Army and spent two years in the Infantry.
He returned to private life in 1971. He worked in the
wood products industry for his entire career, with jobs in
California, Oregon, and Washington. Some jobs
took him to Washington DC to present information about various
logging issues. His final position was as as Executive
Director for the Western Wood Preservers Institute, headquartered
in Vancouver, WA.
Two of Den's passions beyond family began in Richland.
The first and obvious one was fishing. He grew up in a
house that was about a hundred yards from the Columbia River, so
fishing was ever present. The second avocation,
arrowhead hunting and collecting, was more
obscure. Den was fishing one day on the Columbia
near the mouth of the Yakima River when he met a fellow who was
digging for artifacts. The place where Den was fishing
that day happened to be the location of historic native American
camps. Den ask about the activity and the fellow, himself a
member of the Yakima Tribe, was more than pleased to tell Den
about it. With the help of his Dad, Den built the
necessary equipment and started digging and
collecting. It should be emphasized that this
activity was fully legal and within the law at that time. It
would not be today. A third activity that
he picked up in later years was golf. He never
considered himself to be an especially good golfer, but he did
manage to twice get a hole-in-one.
Fishing was the central avocation that he followed through all of
his life. In later years, he transitioned to fly
fishing. While he enjoyed catching bass and large
trout, he especially liked catching steal-head with fly gear.
Den and his brother shared a number of activities with their Dad,
with one that stands out. This was the construction
and flying of kites. We had the usual commercial
kites, purchased at the local dime store, probably for a dime with
another dime for some string. This quickly became
boring, so our Dad suggested that we build a larger kite from
scratch. The first one was a large version of a
classic form, now built with 4 ft long sticks covered with package
mailing paper. The sticks were cut from lath with a
rip-saw. Lath was still available at lumber stores in the
early 1950s. The ultimate creation was a triangular
box kite with wings, which we learned in later years to be known
as a "French Military Kite." It had such a
strong pull that it sometimes took both of us to hold onto the
line, especially in a strong wind. On one flying
session at a field about a mile west of the river, the string
broke, but Dad and the car were near. We hopped in and
chased the kite, only to see it escape across the Columbia River
where it finally landed in a farmer's field. We
had to drive several miles to the only bridge across the river,
and then follow back roads to finally retrieve our prized
creation. We found stronger string after that
incident.
When Den was in high school, he and a friend were wondering how
they might make a few bucks over the summer. After
all, college was looming. They purchased an old,
beat up pick-up truck and got it working. They then
started driving it to the mountains, about 100 miles from
Richland. They would get a permit from the forest
service and then cut downed timber and load it in the
truck. Upon returning home they sold the wood to the
folks at the north end of town who had homes with fire places, a
rarity at that time.
We will continue to miss Denny, but will try to celebrate his
character and entrepreneurial spirit. Just seeing
our river will make us think of him.