![]() There was a small lake at the park - maybe 50 – 100 yards wide. It was about 4 feet tall with 2 stages and 6 or 8 “G” type model rocket engines … I think he estimated in might reach over 2000 feet - He had to get permission from the local airport, just in case. As part of the afternoon’s entertainment, there would be a model rocket launch. There was a company picnic at a local park – just outside town – for the company his father worked for. The one rocket project where he let me be his assistant wasn’t that elaborate but a little bigger. I think that must’ve been one of the newspaper stories. a multi-stage rocket with a charge to separate the capsule from the rocket after it reached maximum height - then it deployed a parachute and returned the mouse safely to the ground. Stories about him appeared in the local newspaper a few times for his model rocket exploits… He built a rocket sled (like they used to train the astronauts) but ‘mouse sized’ … and sent a mouse for a ride on it… and he’d built a model rocket with a ‘space capsule’ (carefully padded) for that mouse. ![]() I’ve thought of him often over the years, wondering if he would have earned his PHD and become a famous scientist - or if he would have had a family - or made it into the Britannica. I can’t say we were ‘best friends’ but for me he came as close as anyone. I’d be pleased and honored if you published my email about Rick on your webpage. I guess he would be 66 this coming Tuesday. Several times I wondered what I could do to make that happen. He told me once that his goal in life was to have an entry under his name in the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA. I don’t know why I thought to GOOGLE for his name tonight - I never knew that his birthday was March 8th (3 days from now)… I remember when we talked … he idolized ROBERT GODDARD, father of american rocketry. At half time of the football game that night, they announced that he had died. That was the day the car turned left in front of him and he went over and landed on his head - no helmet. I saw and spoke with Rick at lunch in the cafeteria that day… we were going to get together at the game. My family moved to Kentucky for my Junior year at EAWRCHS (RICKY’S senior year)… My parents brought me back to Wood River for the home coming football game 1967. Rick and I were friends in high school… he tried to teach me about building model rockets. ![]() With Tim’s permission I include them below in this tribute to Rickey Dean. Tim remembers Rickey Dean very well and has sent a number of recollections. I have recently been contacted by Tim Bowers who was an old school friend of Rickey Dean Lasbury. Born on this day March 8th 1950 in Wood River, Madison, Illinois and tragically died 20th October 1967 at the age of only 17.
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