Chesley Key Culp Jr

By Benjamin Culp 

Ches lived a long and happy life, one deserving of remembrance and celebration. He lived well, sticking to his principles and pursuing his dreams. He greeted each day with a smile, and employed his wit and his intelligence in his every endeavor. It could be said that he spent as much time on the funny pages as he did on the front page, and there's a certain wisdom to that.

Ches was born in McAlester, Oklahoma to parents Irma Combs and Ches Culp, Sr. The Culp's traced their roots back over two and a half centuries of North American history to the late 17th century, giving Ches a strong sense of familial pride and loyalty which he carried with him all his days.

His father, Ches Senior, was the successful owner of the Culp Music Company, later renamed the Culp Piano Company, which instilled a deep appreciation of music in Ches. His mother, Irma, was an accomplished keyboard artist, giving lessons in piano and playing organ for the First Avenue Methodist Church. Both parents were kind, fair-minded pillars of the community, and did much to influence Ches and his two younger brothers, Rob and Bill.

Academic standards were set high, and all three boys went on to have extremely successful careers that would have made their parents proud. The youngest, Bill, was a pioneering radiologist who capped his career with a life-saving stroke medicine. Middle son Rob became a leading astronautical engineer, heading the department at the University of Colorado. 

Eldest son Ches also started on a scientific path, taking an advanced degree in geology, but recognized in himself a passion for something else, something that would change his life.

As a boy, Ches spent many happy days working a paper route on his bicycle, fishing with friends and, in general, just being a kid, but one thing inspired him over all others — flying! Aircraft of the Army Air Corps, those noisy, raucous, incredible flying machines of the Second World War, often buzzed the skies over McAlester, instilling in Ches the desire to fly. Ches joined the ROTC at OU and led the cadet corps. He expected to earn a coveted spot in pilot training when fate stepped in in the form of an automobile accident. Ches flipped his prized Austin-Healey end over end into a ditch, breaking his back and ending his chances of going to pilot training in the process.

He recovered, got his geology degree, and went to the Pentagon to serve as photo-interpreter for his three year stint in the Air Force. It turned out that this little detour would be one of the best things to happen to him when he met his future bride, Jackie, who was working as the secretary for the Secretary of the Air Force. Keep in mind that this was the time of the Cuban missile crisis, so photo intel was being delivered right to the top, and a young lieutenant was a rare sight in the E-ring of the Pentagon. 

Fast forward through various dates in the jazz clubs of Georgetown and canoe rides on the Potomac river to their wedding in Chevy Chase, Maryland in 1962. By '63, they had their first son, Bud, and the need to make some better money became a priority.

Ches took his previous training in geology and returned to the Rocky Mountain west where he'd done his summer field work. Working for Humble oil, Ches quickly realized that "sitting wells" and reading the core samples in the harsh Wyoming winter was a far cry from summer hikes in the mountains of Montana and decided this was not the future for him. This was just fine with Jackie, who'd had just about enough chasing the laundry as it blew across the Wyoming landscape, so they upped camp, moved to Denver, and Ches began building his qualifications as a pilot. Through years of labor and sacrifice, Ches and Jackie together made Ches' dreams a reality. 

Over those years, their second son, Benjamin, came along. Jackie cared for the kids, worked her way through grad school and used her degree to get jobs to supplement their income. Ches, meanwhile, crafted a reputation as a fine pilot and valuable employee. He was rewarded with a position as Chief Pilot for oil man Fred Anschutz which kicked off a successful run over the next two decades, flying bigger and better planes in his growing flight department as Fred's son, Phil, expanded the company. 

This was the apex of Ches' career. As chief pilot, Ches was able to fly "his" planes exactly as he saw fit. He picked the machines, he chose the pilots, and he made the rules. Had his life gone "according to plan", Ches likely would have been an Air Force pilot, then an airline pilot, living out a flying career governed by someone else's rules. After looking back and comparing notes with his son Ben, who had exactly that other career, Ches felt lucky to have gotten the opportunity to "do it his way."

Of course, it wasn't all work, and the whole family shared in some of Ches' other interests, like skiing, golfing and bicycling. They also shared in Ches' enjoyment of music, each participating in various ways, which pleased Ches enormously. Certainly, his greatest achievements came not from his career, but from his family. Bud became a successful Harvard trained lawyer and has a beautiful wife, Kelly Palmer, who is a professor of history at the University of Tampa. As mentioned, Ben was a US Air Force Academy grad, F-16 combat pilot and airline captain for Southwest Airlines, and is fortunate to be married to Michele, a former Inspector-in-Charge for the US Postal Inspection Service. And, most of all, Ches remained wholly devoted to his lovely wife of 62 years, Jackie. In all things, she was, and always will be, the center of his world.

What do we remember about Ches? He was a man of integrity. A good man. He served his country, and he loved his family. He worked hard to provide for them, and he taught his children to be good people. He possessed a sharp intellect, a broad and cultured appreciation of his world, and, like any dad, he loved a bad pun. He was always looking forward, never back. He was known to say, "Shoulda, woulda and coulda are the three most wasted words in the English language." And what's more, he was a kind man. "Don't hate," he would say. "Waste of energy." Good advice for us all.