Richard Harrison Weathermon, age 91, of Pullman passed away peacefully at his Pullman home on Feb. 22, 2019, with his daughter Karen and grandson Peter at his side. Born in Hoquiam, Washington, on Aug. 16, 1927, the oldest child of Jerome and Ruth (Miller) Weathermon, Dick considered himself a most fortunate man throughout his 91 years.
Raised primarily in Tacoma, Dick was blessed to live from ages 5 to 8 with his great-aunt and uncle, Pearl and Dick Behm, in Hoquiam. They loved him dearly, and the weekly trips to their cabin near Lake Quinault on the Olympia Peninsula were the start of Dick’s great love of the outdoors. That passion resulted in a lifetime of fishing, hiking and beachcombing, and later the joy of depicting those places in paintings.
Dick graduated from Tacoma’s Lincoln High School in 1945, president of his senior class and an All-City tackle on Lincoln’s storied and undefeated 1944 football team coached by Phil Sarboe. Upon graduation he enlisted in the Marine Corps. His year of service and the GI Bill provided him the chance to be the first in his family to attend college.
Dick enrolled at Pacific Lutheran College (now PLU) in Tacoma in the fall of 1946, originally drawn to the opportunity to play football. While he did play for three years, and on the 1947 championship Pear Bowl team, his time at PLC had far more reaching consequences. It was there he met Helen Jensen, discovered his vocation of education and found his faith. All three became foundations for his life.
Graduating from PLC in 1950 with a degree in education and English, Dick began teaching in Aberdeen, Washington, first at the fifth-grade level and then at Miller Jr High, where he taught ninth-grade English and coached football. After their marriage in June 1952, Helen joined him teaching in Aberdeen. They joyfully welcomed daughters Kristine in 1958 and Karen in 1961.
Dick began his administrative career in Aberdeen as vice principal at Miller Junior High and then as principal at McDermoth Elementary. He earned his MA in Education and English at PLU in 1962 and his Doctorate in Education at Washington State University in 1969.
Dick’s career in school administration continued with positions as assistant superintendent in Federal Way, Washington (1969-71), and as superintendent in Pullman, Washington (1971-76), the International School in Manila, Philippines (1976-82), and Sumner, Washington (1982-85). He was known throughout his career as a man whose intellect was coupled with integrity and who inspired colleagues regarding the value of their shared work as educators. His own joy in learning was lifelong.
Upon his retirement in Sumner, Dick began an unexpected second career as a landscape artist. Dick and Helen’s love of hiking and the outdoors now was transformed into hundreds of oil paintings of the places he loved: Mt. Rainier, the Olympic Peninsula, and Southeast Alaska. Though he painted for the sheer delight of it, his artwork was exhibited and sold in several galleries in Washington and Alaska.
After Helen’s death in 2001, Dick began volunteering weekly at PLU’s Alumni Office, reconnecting with the community of his alma mater. He also greatly enjoyed lasting friendships with classmates, teammates, former students, friends and colleagues who spanned the globe.
Dick loved words and language. He was a gifted writer and public speaker who could recite from memory an astonishing array of poetry and literary quotes. He and Helen also loved jazz music, and in his final years he found great satisfaction in creating the Richard and Helen Weathermon Joyful Noise Endowment for Jazz Studies at PLU. This endowment brings a jazz musician to campus each year to work and perform with jazz students from both PLU and a local high school.
Dick returned to Pullman in 2016 to share a home with daughter Karen Weathermon and grandson Peter Richard Weathermon Smith. Preceded in death by Helen, daughter Kris, his parents, and sister Jacklyn Erichsen, he is survived by Karen and Peter, brother Robert (Gig Harbor) and numerous nephews and nieces.
Dick’s life will be celebrated with a memorial service at Trinity Lutheran Church in Pullman at 2 p.m. on March 23, and at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Sumner at 2 p.m. on April 27. He will also be remembered at the third annual Joyful Noise concert at PLU’s Eastvold Auditorium at 8 p.m. on April 26. His remains will be buried alongside those of Helen and Kris in St. Helens, Oregon.
A poem Dick wrote while living in Manila concludes, “I look for other crossings, safer footing, finer fishing, but the currents of my rivers pull me home.” We trust that he is indeed now at home.
