In Memory

Dick Powers

Dick Powers passed away on August 7, 2013.  I am including the link of his obituary in case anyone would like to send condolences.  

http://www.bentleyfuneralhome.com/ObituaryView.aspx?OID=665



 
go to bottom 
  Post Comment

08/27/13 06:01 PM #1    

Lynn Severson (Vallette)

Wow, I am so shocked after hearing of Dicks passing...I actually asked a few classmates at the reunion where he was. I always had a special place in my heart for Dick in HS.  He was so funny to be around and always had a good time when hanging around with him...He will be missed. Prayers to his family.


08/29/13 08:05 PM #2    

Nick Drzycimski

I lived around the block from Dick for about 6 years up in the Round Prairie neighborhood and have a lot of memories growing up.  He was always such a clown and was part of the gang that passed the summers playing baseball, hanging out reading comic books, playing kick-the- can with a lot of the Powers clan.  I remember walking to the theatres downtown and then we would re-enact whatever war movie or other action film we saw.  He always seemed to be the one to get picked on all the time but seemed to roll with it.  I'll always remember his thick glasses as a kid and he had them taped together as he was constantly breaking them.  Used to walk to Corpus Christi a lot with 'ol Dickie Bird - god rest his soul.  Nick


09/05/13 10:55 PM #3    

John Hogan

I think I remember reading somewhere that the greatest way to celebrate death is not through grief, rather gratitude.  Not that I hung with Dick much through high school but he, like every one else in our class, gave each other something to remember, to laugh about, or perhaps even weep.  I'll give the guy credit....he could dance!


12/04/13 11:46 AM #4    

Tom Koch

Dick always made me laugh. He was as hilarious in private as he was in public and he was great on stage. He also was a beautiful tenor.  Dick didn't have the greatest home life, but he hid it well and probably honed his humorous side.  Dick and I were in CYO together and went on a Search in our junior year together in Remsen.  He was well known from then on throughout the Diocese and worked on crews at Searches in his senior year.  He would often ride along with me when we would visit Search friends in Carroll, Algona, Fonda, and Storm Lake. I think he invented break dancing when he would dance to the drum solo in In a Gadda da Vida at sock hops.  I think I last saw Dickie at our 10 year Reunion and am sorry I lost track of him. I also was asking if anyone had heard from him at the Reunion. My favorite story of Dickie happened when we were in Boy Scouts together in 5th or 6th grade, and we had a campout somewhere outside of Webster City.  All the Tenderfoots were taken on a snipe hunt.  We were given our sack and a flashlight and some marshmallows. We were told that snipe were the only birds with teeth so you had to shake this bag with the marshmallows, shine the light in it and whisper "here snipe, here snipe" and whatever you do, DON'T try to catch one with your hand.  Dick took this very seriously. He asked what to do if one got out of the bag and was told to run as fast as he could into the tent and jump into his sleeping bag head first so it couldn't bite him.  I had read about snipe hunts and told one of the older guys that snipe weren't real.  He said neither was Santa Claus, "but don't spoil it, kid".  We spread out in the woods and I could hear Tim Watson and Dickie whispering "here snipe, c'mon snipey snipey" while rattling their bags and shining their flashlights.  We slowly stole away...about twenty minutes later we heard a loud screech, thundering feet, a ripping zipper and a muffled yell from the bottom of a sleeping bag.  A minute after that Dickie came out of the woods wide eyed, holding his hand, yelling, "it bit me, it bit me, it really did" over and over.  We laughed about that story together many times, but I could never really tell whether we spoofed him or he actually spoofed us.  I read his obituary and as most of us have, Dickie grew up, became a very good father and husband, but you could read between the lines and still see a break dancing snipe hunter.  Rest happy Dick.


03/16/18 10:30 PM #5    

Dean Barnett (Barnett)

Dick was my best friend in high school. We had so much in common: interested in music, fascinated by Search, enamored of alcohol and weed, consumed by politics, each other's favorite joke sounding board, and later members of the US Navy. And we were extremely lucky to find a kindred if not enabling spirit in Tom Koch, whose Dodge Dart was the vehicle for so many of those adolescent adventures.

We drifted apart after the 1970s as each of us found new lives in new directions, as happens to adults. I was pleased when eventually we re-connected through Facebook, and I found my old friend hadn't lost his penetrating wit and impeccable sense of satire. In our last FB exchange, I had commented that something in the news was "dickish", in the worst possible meaning of the term. Mr. Powers reminded me of the possible good uses of the term with a simple comment, "ahem."

You get, if you're lucky, one soul-grade friend in your youth. I consider myself fortunate that I can call Dick Powers mine. 


go to top 
  Post Comment

 




agape