Hi John, I am Dick Pollard's niece and I was looking through the internet and came upon your message. I know you left it a long time ago, but if you happen to see this and are still interested, send me an email and I'll see if my dad is interested in talking to you. 02/24/2010 @ 17:05 [ref: 9273]
John Owens , Florida
My name is John Owens. I am writing to ask what information do you have regarding Dick Pollard. I lived next door to Dick Pollard.
I helped him work on his hot air balloon when he was 18 years old. He won a world hot air balloon race, Dicks first race. Sadly, Dick was killed because his burners had a fuel leak causing him to loose control of the balloon causing the balloon to fly into high tension electrical wires causing the balloon to catch on fire. When Dick caught on fire he jumped causing injuries that killed him moments later.
I underwent cervical spine sugary on December 12 th. When I woke up from the surgery my right chest, arm and hand was totally paralyzed. I found out that the surgeon punctured my spinal cord, severed so many nerves I have total nerve damage from the neck down. When the surgeon punctured my spinal cord it caused a mass to grow called Myelomalacia. The Myelomalacia will continue to grow destroying my spinal cord until it kills me.
As I am putting my life back together and my past I wanted to find as much information I could about Dick Pollard, (Richard) to pass on to my kids. I know I had my picture taken by some one from your paper but that was done in 1963 I believe. Dick & I became good friends, he treated me like his kid brother. I guess that's because I loved aviation as much as he did. In fact I became an airline pilot for USAirways in 1987.
Any info would be helpful. 02/26/2006 @ 14:45 [ref: 4836]
Norm Crocker Creston, Iowa
Good small museum covering the history of baloon flight. 03/21/2002 @ 09:11 [ref: 1964]