Johnny "Mac" Byrd, as he was known in South Florida, earned his Commercial Glider Pilot certificate at Sebring, FL in the sixties during one of our camps. He asked me to be his first passenger in Lou Rehr's SGS 2-32. His first visit to Marfa, Texas, was at the Nationals in 1969 with the BG-12 he built. That was the first contest where the majority of the sailplanes were glass and he usually came up short on the speed triangles because the sun went down. On the free distance day, he outflew many pilots with his flight to Childress, TX, landing by the light of the rotating beacon. In "The Sun Ship Game" movie filmed at that 1969 contest, that's his funky VW bus with the surfboard on top and the shower head on the back. The odd red rectangular figure painted on the side of the bus he told me was "his state of mind." Always witty and more than willing to help anyone understand reading the sky, efficient thermaling and his cross country soaring techniques. Based on his accomplishments and generosity, he was voted into the Soaring Hall of Fame. I got to make the presentation speech.

Johnny Byrd almost lost a day at a national contest when, on the way to turn in his log of his contest task to the scorer, he stopped to help a young pilot disassemble a sailplane as the one hour time-limt nearly ran out. Later, after being declared the winner of a contest, he reviewed the scores with the scorer and pointed out that he actually came in second and immediately relinquished the trophy! He was a well-loved high school shop teacher, later an electrician. Johnny would custom build sailplane trailers "to pay for next summer's contest."

So many stories. When his Discus A was delivered by mistake to a California port, instead of to Florida, he decided which model rental car he would rent, flew airline to California with a complete trailer hitch in his baggage, installed it on the rental car and drove his new Discus back to Florida. He removed the hitch, plugged the holes that he drilled in the trunk before returning the rental car. I've been privileged to know Johnny and Ann (high-school sweethearts) in Florida and later when we all moved to Marfa, near the Davis Mountains of southwest Texas. I suppose that would be all of my adult life, over 50 years. A fine example of true gentleman, we're all going to miss him.