Dick Dixon
Marriages
Annetta Dixon - 1965
Patti Dixon - 1981
Obituaries
Vail Daily - June 8, 2001
Outdoorsman killed in horse accident, by Randy Wyrick.
A memorial service for Dick DIXON is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday at the Lazy J Ranch in Wolcott. It's a wild game feed, and everyone should bring something for a pot luck. The event will include a 21-shotgun salute. Donations should be made to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Ducks Unlimited.
How do you remember the heroes of your youth, the Lone Range, Roy Rogers, John Wayne? The picture firmly etched in your memory is a bold man on a spirited horse, in command of both his animal and his world. And that's how Dick DIXON's friends want you to remember him.
He's my hero, said longtime friend Jan JOHNSON. He was everyone's hero, and heroes are not supposed to die. But all things do.
DIXON died this week from injuries suffered in a horseback riding accident he was 65.
Born March 20, 1936, in Elkhart Lake, Wis., DIXON served in the U.S. Army four years and attended college in Wisconsin before landing in Colorado in the early 1960s. He migrated to Vail from Breckenridge, working as a trail crew member for Vail Associates before joining the ski patrol for 10 years. He married Annetta in 1965 and their sons Eric and Troy were born in Glenwood Springs during the decade he served on ski patrol.
In those early hardscrabble days of Vail, one of the primary forms of entertainment was storytelling, and Dixon was a master.
"He loved to talk and tell stories, and he'd act them out with the gestures that went with the stories," said longtime friend Jack CARNIE. "You could see him hook a fish. It could be a story that you had heard before, but you'd stand there and listen to it again because he was telling it so well."
As an ambulance driver, he frequently made emergency runs to Denver before Vail's hospital was built. DIXON helped initiate the area's first search and rescue group, and began the original hostess program on the mountain. He worked with a maintenance program for VA before leaving Vail in 1979 for Grand Cayman, where he co-owned and ran a SCUBA dive shop. After marrying Patti in 1981 and moving back to Vail, he and Hemmie WESTBYE started the West Slope Surplus Store, which became Dixon Outfitters when DIXON bought out his partner. DIXSON retired after closing the store a year and a half ago.
During his years in Vail, DIXON was a bartender at the Red Lion, and spent a couple of summers in Alaska fishing for salmon with his business partner and friend WESTBYE. He also was a licensed trapper, avid hunter and fisherman. He loved to be in the backcountry, whether it was for hiking, camping, snowshoeing, hunting or fishing. He was an extraordinary storyteller, a naturalist and historian.
He hunted for the love of the outdoors and nature, as much as for the hunt itself, said Susie Johnson. He was a mentor to all the children who grew up in this valley.
In addition to his wife, Patti, DIXON is survived by his sons, Erick (Lynn) DIXON and Troy (Tanya) DIXON of Eagle; his mother Kay DIXON of Elkhart Lake, Wis. and a sister Kathleen SKARVIN of Cedarburg, Wis.
The family requests that in lieu of flowers, memorial contributions in Dick Dixon's name be sent to Ducks Unlimited of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation: RMEF, Eagle County Chapter, Box 3803, Minturn, Colo. 81645.
