Harvey Huffer

Harvey Huffer was a first year student at Mesa College 70 years ago when a friend tempted him to leave school and join the U.S. Army Air Corps. A friend of Harvey’s kept sending him letters from the Philippines saying how much he liked the service. Harvey grew up on a farm off River Road in Grand Junction.

For 10 years he attended the old Pomona two-room schoolhouse. “I didn’t want to be a farmer and I wasn’t too wild about school,” says Harvey. So he joined the Air Corps in 1939 and served for the next six years during World War II. “Our group was the only bomber group who served in every theater of war,” says Harvey. “I enjoyed the military. I got used to it. It’s probably why I got interested in the airline service. “Even as a child I was interested in airplanes.” After the service Harvey returned to Grand Junction where he was one of three men hired in April 1946, to work for Grand Junction’s first airline carrier – Western Airlines. Harvey worked as a station agent providing ground service at Walker Field Airport.

It was a “plumb route,” from Las Vegas to Grand Junction to Denver, that was eventually sold to United Airlines, says Harvey. Commercial airplanes in western Colorado were a rarity in those days and townspeople often came to the airport to watch the planes take off and land. A turning circle was built into a 25-foot deep hole in the ground, designed specifically to allow onlookers to view the plane. Only problem, it was difficult to get the plane out once it was in the hole. “The only way to get the planes out from there was to place a log chain around the nose gear of the plane,” and pull it up, says Harvey.

Sometimes a plane would almost reach the top, and then it would slide back down. The mechanics in Denver and Las Vegas never knew what was happening to the nose gear to cause it to be all marked-up, says Harvey, with a chuckle. In those days the terminal where Harvey took tickets was a Quonset hut – a metallic oval structure. “It was pretty primitive,” says Harvey.

Western Airlines transferred Harvey to different places during his tenure, including Montana, Denver and Black Hills, South Dakota where he met his wife Peg, who was a stewardess. (They’re called flight attendants now, says Harvey.) Harvey liked working as a district sales manager in the Black Hills where the golfing and fishing was good, and the scenery was beautiful. But he ended up working in the Los Angeles office headquarters for 10 years where he also helped a friend start a travel agency.

From Los Angeles Harvey and Peg retired to Arizona where golfing was good year-round. “Even at 116 degrees,” says Harvey, “We’d take the windshield off the golf cart and get a breeze.” Harvey liked Arizona but Peg wanted to go back to Grand Junction so they returned to Harvey’s hometown.

Harvey and Peg were married almost 59 years before she passed away a year ago from Alzheimer’s Disease. They had four children: David, who lives in nearby Whitewater, a son in Denver, and another son and daughter in California. Harvey moved to The Commons Assisted & Independent Living Community in February. He says he has nothing but compliments for The Commons. “They’ve got the most marvelous breakfast you can imagine,” says Harvey. “Bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, oatmeal.” It’s pretty much what he used to eat at home, he says. “But here, someone prepares it for me and does the dishes.”

By: Sharon Sullivan