Friedman Memorial Airport staff and aviation folks in general are mourning the passing of a beloved local pilot and conservationist. Robert Gray Stevens, born April 9, 1935, passed away on Feb. 15 in Ketchum after a brief illness. He was 85.<\/p>\n
Stevens had a lifelong love affair with the sky. Anytime fair weather prevailed, he could be found aloft in the Idaho backcountry, at the yoke of his beloved Piper Cub. A Valley local since 1977, Stevens had purchased close to 20 acres north of Ketchum where he and his wife Carol made their family home.<\/p>\n
The Valley was picture-perfect for the couple, surrounded by breathtaking mountains, ample skiing and plentiful backcountry airstrips. Opportunities for commercial office development abounded, and Stevens didn\u2019t hesitate to take advantage.<\/p>\n
He kept his plane at Friedman Memorial Airport where he noticed there weren\u2019t any hangars to protect aircraft from the elements. So what does a developer with an airplane at an airport with no hangars do? Build some, of course.<\/p>\n
It was supposed to just be six hangars, but demand eventually led to 35 hangars.<\/p>\n
Stevens was a beloved fixture at Friedman Memorial Airport, flying two to three times a week, when the weather permitted. Clad in his usual khaki slacks, a red checkered button-down shirt and his trademark lightweight fiberfill jacket, he was easily recognizable around the field. As time claimed his once bushy head of hair, he added a ball cap to his \u201cuniform of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friedman Memorial Airport Manager Chris Pomeroy recalled his first encounter with Stevens, just shortly after he was hired.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t remember why Bob had ostensibly dropped by the office, but I quickly gathered he was there to \u2018size-up the new guy\u2019 that had just landed in the top position at his beloved airport,\u201d said Pomeroy. \u201cI could tell immediately he was definitely someone to be reckoned with\u2014in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Friedman Memorial Airport staff and aviation folks in general are mourning the passing of a beloved local pilot and conservationist. Robert Gray Stevens, born April 9, 1935, passed away on Feb. 15 in Ketchum after a brief illness. He was 85. Stevens had a lifelong love affair with the sky. Anytime fair weather prevailed, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,18,21],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-in-brief","8":"category-news","9":"category-obituary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15771,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15768\/revisions\/15771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}