Local residents remember meeting 'Dutch' in Valley (Nice Photos)

Valley Press ^ | Friday, June 11, 2004 | LISA WAHLA HOWARD

[BenLurkin]

Lola Tipton of Lancaster remembers meeting a very handsome Ronald Reagan in 1937, a man who introduced himself as "Dutch." GOP politico Frank Visco, an invited guest at Reagan's White House, is mourning the man he calls "a father figure."

And Jeremy Giampietro, a 24-year-old Highland High School graduate, will help carry his casket at today's burial in Simi Valley.

Antelope Valley residents are dwelling on memories this week of Ronald Wilson Reagan, especially those who met the 40th president on one of his several trips to the Valley.

Reagan visited the Valley in the 1960s, for a tour of the General Electric aerospace facility at Edwards Air Force Base and to speak at a Lancaster Chamber of Commerce dinner. He visited again in 1974 for a political fund-raiser for Assembly candidate Ken Hall, and in 1982 Reagan was present for a landing of Space Shuttle Columbia at Edwards. The president returned in 1984 to tour the Palmdale Plant 42 facility where the B-1 bombers were built. Reagan also campaigned at the Antelope Valley Inn for his daughter Maureen's congressional race.

"I don't care if the line was 500 people long, when he shook your hand, you were the only one in the room," said former Lancaster Mayor Barbara Little, who had her photo taken with Reagan when he was here for the B-1 roll-out.

That's how most Valley residents recall their meetings with the president, who exuded charm.

Connie Calvert remembers meeting Reagan when he visited the General Electric plant at Edwards Air Force Base in the 1960s. Calvert's husband was a testing manager at the aerospace company, and Reagan was a television spokesman for GE.

"He had a very magnetic personality - very polite, very courteous, very charming," said Calvert, who remembers Reagan speaking against communism.

In the late 1960s, Reagan was back, this time as governor of California. He gave the keynote speech at the installation dinner of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, and Gerald "Jerry" Bigalk and Chuck Taylor picked Reagan up from Fox Field and rode in the back seat to the dinner at the AV Fairgrounds.

"We had a nice conversation about the aircraft and industry here, and the agriculture," said Bigalk, a veteran of World War II. "When he became president, he brought pride back to the country, and back to the military."

Marguerite Rowell, a longtime Valley resident, admired Reagan's good looks when he was in the movies and respected him later as a politician. She and her husband, the late Dr. Homer Rowell, met the president at several local events, including the GE visit in the 1960s and the campaign swing for daughter Maureen.

"He just had that charm of being able to make people feel that he was their friend," said Rowell, who shook Reagan's hand and spoke with him at one event. "He was a very humble, down-to-earth individual. He had this great Irish charm and winsomeness. He was an ordinary American who was given extraordinary opportunities and he took advantage of them. That's what people loved about him - he was honest and genuine, and he came across that way."

At the B-1 roll-out, Little, as Lancaster's mayor, was able to get a photograph with Reagan. Fred Hann, who was vice-mayor at the time, was not. But Hann proudly recalls being present for Reagan's inauguration in 1981, while he was in Washington for a mayors' conference, and attending the same presidential ball as John Wayne's widow, Pilar.

"It's a memory we'll never forget," Hann said. "Without a doubt, he's our favorite president."

Hann and his wife have visited Reagan's birthplace in Tampico, Ill., viewing the bedroom where Reagan entered the world on Feb. 6, 1911.

Lola Tipton remembers Reagan from his earlier days, as a baseball broadcaster on WHO radio in Des Moines, Iowa. She met him in 1937 at a Fourth of July celebration, where she played clarinet and he served as master of ceremonies.

"He was so handsome -- he had these great, big black-rimmed glasses," Tipton said. "I thought he was the most handsome man I'd ever seen. We all had a good time, talking and laughing and joking around."

Not too many years later, Lancaster resident LaQueta Jordon was a little girl in 1940s Hollywood, where Reagan had moved to pursue acting. Jordon said her parents would often run into Reagan and his first wife, Jane Wyman, at an upscale men's clothier.

"The men would try the suits on and come out and strut in front of the women," said Jordon, who enjoyed watching Reagan's films. "Jane and my mother would sit there and have a good time. They were pretty good friends."

Jordon, now 71, said her father, Bernie Muiter, exchanged letters and recipes with the Reagans. Today, Jordon has three framed photographs on her wall, one of Reagan, one of John F. Kennedy and one of Arizona Sen. John McCain.

A man who helped raise support for Reagan's three presidential bids - a failed attempt in 1976, and successes in 1980 and 1984 - is Frank Visco, the former chairman of the California Republican Party.

"He was committed to bringing democracy to the world and to eliminating the evil - he was just a fantastic leader," said Visco, who owns a Lancaster insurance business. "He narrowed everything down to its simplest denominator ... make people work, cut government down if you can, eliminate waste. It's not rocket science. That's why you see this outpouring of affection."

Visco met the president on many occasions, sometimes driving him to events and ferrying him from airports.

Today, Jeremy Giampietro will lend a hand with the president's logistics. The Navy seaman was "really honored" to be selected as a pallbearer, after serving in other military funerals over the last year.

"I thought he was a great president and a great man, and it's really a privilege to be able to carry his casket," said Giampietro, who helped carry the casket into and out of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library this week.

After Reagan's funeral in Washington, D.C., his casket will be flown back to California, where Giampietro will help deliver it to the Library for burial.

Congressman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, will attend the funeral, and he was present for Wednesday's ceremony when the casket was placed in the Capitol Rotunda.

"It was a real good time of reflection," McKeon said of the service, which included eulogies from Vice President Dick Cheney, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate President Pro Tem Ted Stevens. "He really, really made a change in the country, and we're still working on the same agenda now. We're basically following his leadership: reduce taxes, reduce government bureaucracy, a strong defense."

The road up a hill to the library was lined with American flags, when Monday and Tuesday more than 100,000 people viewed the casket.

Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster, visited the Library on Tuesday, with a group of Republican legislators who paid for a charter plane from Sacramento.

"There was such a reverence," Runner said. "It was amazing to see the bus loads - 15 to 20 bus loads waiting to go up the hill."

Lancaster resident Jeri Coleman made the trip to Simi Valley on Monday, waiting several hours under somber, cloudy skies to catch one of the buses to the Library.

Once in front of the well-guarded, flag-draped casket, "the silence was deafening," Coleman said. "It was amazing - you didn't hear high heels clicking, it was like people were tip-toeing. Even the children were in awe. It was just the most amazing, devoted respect I've ever seen anywhere, any time."

Coleman met the president in the late 1970s when he spoke to a real estate group in Van Nuys, and recalls his humor and patience in meeting and greeting nearly every person in the room.

"I loved him. I followed his career, and I voted for him every time and I campaigned for him every time," Coleman said. "He had that charisma that's so unusual, such a rare quality."

[BenLurkin]

"MISSION COMPLETE - Space shuttle Columbia commander Thomas K. Mattingly, foreground, and pilot Henry W. Hartsfield salute President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan after landing the orbiter July 4, 1982, at Edwards Air Force Base." Valley Press archives

"VISITING VALLEY - President Ronald Reagan addresses aerospace workers at the B-1 facility at Plant 42 in Palmdale in October 1984." Valley Press archive

"VISITING VALLEY - Then Gov. Reagan takes a ride in a horse cart with 4-H'er Clara Jarrell during the 1965 Rural Olympics at the Antelope Valley Fair and Alfalfa Festival in Lancaster." Valley Press archive

"HAPPY LANDING - President and Mrs. Reagan were on hand in December 1986 during a reception in Century City for the crew and designer of the globe-circling Voyager aircraft, which was designed, built and tested in Mojave. From left are Nancy Reagan, aircraft designer Burt Rutan, Voyager pilot Dick Rutan, Ronald Reagan, and co-pilot Jeana Yeager." Ron Siddle/Valley Press archive