Today's Featured Biography

 
Loyd Ritchey

I married Carolyn Morrison (a River Oaks girl) in 1957 in Mexico, we eloped. I went to work for Overseas Motors ,after we got married, in the parts dept. and later got transferred to the air conditioning division where I designed, built and installed air conditioners on foreign made automobiles. I worked there until 1965 when I was invited to come to work for Bell Helicopter. I worked for Bell for 33 yrs in several departments. I started out running a band saw and retired as a tool and die maker. I played ball on a Bell team for about 10 yrs. Another one of my duties while at Bell was playing the bass guitar. Bell went all out for the United Way campaign and formed a band. ( The Bell Boys ) At that time of year we went to all facilities to try to entice employees to give to the United Way. We would go to the different facilities’ and play in the cafeterias during their lunch hour and give our “pitch” for the United Way. Bell called it the “ Bell Humanity Fund“. It went much further than the United Way.
Outside Bell during those years I was involved in several other things one of which is the Masonic futurity. I am A passed master of Eureka Masonic Lodge in Springtown, TX, a passed district instructor, a passed district deputy grand master, and I organized and was the charter president of the 89th Masonic district Master, Warden’s and Secretary’s Assoc ion.
One of my chief hobbies is music. I started playing the guitar before we got married. Carolyn’s brother taught me to play. We would play at family gatherings or jam sessions. I played guitar until the mid 70’s when it seamed like everybody played a flattop guitar so I took up the bass guitar.
When we retired and started going to the Texas valley, bass players were a dime a dozen, so I switched again. This time I started playing the fiddle. Fiddle players are not so plentiful. We play about 3 or 4 times a week in or around Ft. Worth.
We have always loved to camp-out and when we retired we bought a forty foot motorhome and lived in it for eight years. Loved every minute of it. We traveled the good old USA from Maine to California several times.
About the time we retired we got involved in the Good Sam club. After a couple of years we were invited to come on the Texas State Staff as “State Sound Coordinator”. I stayed on as the “sound man” until 2010. We are also on the staff of “THE RALLEY”, the national organization of the good sams. We have worked for them, a month at a time, for several years. We have worked rally’s in Kansas , Oregon, Florida, New Mexico, and Georgia and will be back in Oregon again this year (2011).
We bought a small farm just south of Cottondale, TX. In 1980 and still live there.
We don’t travel as much as we have in passed years but we still go to the valley in the winter, to the high country in the hot months, and to California for a month each year to visit our daughter and her family.

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