Sunday, December 6, 2015

Unveiling of VP Dick Cheney Bust

We happened into watching an hour long program on C-span this afternoon that was recorded from the Thursday “unveiling” of a Marble Bust of Vice President Richard “Dick" Cheney at the US Capitol.  Cheney was born in Lincoln, NE on 1/30/41 while his father, Richard Sr. was employed in the Regional Office of the Soil Conservation Service. I began with SCS in the spring of 1948 at Seward where surface irrigation became popular in the early ’50’s. A USDA reorganization in 1953 led to the closure of the SCS Regional Offices on November 1, 1953 and the State Offices strengthened. My boss arranged for me to spend a couple days in Lincoln working with the Irrigation Engineers on local projects while they and other Regional employees were being interviewed by Washington Office staff and assigned to State Offices. Richard Cheney, Sr. was assigned as the State Administrative Officer in Casper, WY, where he took his family. Meanwhile, I advanced to the Washington Office of the agency in 1962 and began my working relationship with Richard, Sr.  After young Dick came to D.C. in ’69 to work with Congressman Steiger and Donald Rumsfield, Richard would come to my office at least once a year to tell me “how the kid was getting along”. When Dick was appointed Chief of Staff at the White House, my Secretary and I sent a telegram to Richard congratulating him on the success “of the kid”. After returning to Nebraska and working with the State’s water activities, Mike, Vince and I toured the North Platte watershed on into Wyoming. We had lunch August 27th with Richard, Sr. who had retired in Casper, WY; and we talked about Dick who was in Congress at the time. I was pleased to hear George W. Bush mention Dick’s father working for the Soil Conservation Service in his comments at the unveiling which was done by his family in the above picture. 

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