Richard (Dick) Lucas Webb, Sr.

Lifelong Alaskan Richard “Dick” L. Webb Sr. peacefully passed as a result of complications from progressive supranuclear palsy, or PSP, on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at home in Raven Landing in Fairbanks, Alaska.

He was born October 24, 1941, in Barrow, location of the closest hospital to Wainwright, where his parents, the late Richard B. Webb and Millie (nee Lucas) Webb, were teaching there for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It is reported Dick was the “seventh white child born in Barrow”. Following the Webbs’ return flight to Wainwright, the village held a dance in honor of his birth and the family’s return. They also gave the newborn the nickname, Ookpik, which translates to snowy (or white) owl.

His parents moved to Nome during WWII to run the US government radio operations. After the war, they went to work for Wien Airlines and Dick attended grade school. In 1949, the Webb family moved to Fairbanks, which became Dick’s lifelong hometown. Dick’s parents owned and operated the Tamarac Inn, and his mother was on the Board of Directors of the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce in 1957 when the SS Nenana was brought to Fairbanks. While his parents operated the SS Nenana as overflow housing for the tourist boom, teenager Dick took visitors on tours of the SS Nenana. When his parents started their business, Inside Alaska Tours promoting tourism in Alaska, he helped by giving tours, selling airline tickets, and driving groups to and from the local sites, including the Malemute Saloon and Cripple Creek Resort in nearby Ester. He eventually became a tour escort throughout Alaska and then ran the family’s Juneau travel agency office before his mother’s unexpected death in Fairbanks.

Dick graduated from Lathrop High School and, in 1967, married his University of Alaska (Fairbanks) sweetheart, Kathy Coghlan, in her hometown of Wasilla. After a stint at Pan Am and Alaska Airlines, Dick spent many years working for the State of Alaska at Fairbanks International Airport Police and Fire, retiring in 1993 to devote time to his true passions: travel and tourism, and working tirelessly on Lions Club activities throughout northern Alaska.

Dick was a consummate coordinator to get projects completed. He was elected as the District 49B Governor for the Yukon-Northwest Territories/Alaska and British Columbia for the Lions Club, organizing meetings from the far northern reaches of Alaska and the Yukon Territory of Canada. He visited every Lions Club in his district, including Nome to Barrow to Dawson City to Whitehorse and beyond. He was awarded the prestigious Melvin Jones Fellowship Award for his contributions to the organization. Frequent attendees of the international Lions conventions, Dick and Kathy traveled to Hong Kong, Montreal, New York, and Boston as a result of his dedication to the organization.

After retiring, Dick and Kathy moved from Fairbanks to Wasilla to care for Kathy’s mother and then lived there for 20 years, where Dick spent his free time in service to the MatSu Food Bank, Christ First United Methodist Church (UMC), and the Wasilla Lions Club. In 2018, they returned to Fairbanks to live at Raven Landing Senior Community Center. By coincidence, this modern retirement facility is situated on the grounds of the former Weeks Field where, back in 1949, the Webb family, with grade-schooler, Dick, and younger brother, Jack, landed back in Fairbanks aboard a Wien aircraft from Nome.

Dick was a longtime member of the Pioneers of Alaska Fairbanks, Igloo #4, as was his father, Richard Burrell Webb. Dick and Kathy Webb have been active members of the Fairbanks First United Methodist Church since the 1970’s.

Dick is survived by his wife, Kathy (nee Coghlan) Webb; their daughter, Valerie Webb and her husband, Matthew Blake of Fairbanks; and their son, Richard “Rick” Webb, Jr., Rick’s wife, Emma, and Dick’s granddaughter, Jane Violet Webb, of Chapel Hill, N.C., of whom he was extremely proud.

His extended family includes his brother, Jack B. Webb and his wife, Susan Hankey-Webb, of Fairbanks; and his stepmother, Florence Lintner, and her family in Oregon.

A memorial service will be held at a later date in the summer. In lieu of flowers, donations in his honor may be sent to the MatSu Food Bank, www.matsufoodbank.org, (907)357-3769, Christ First UMC (2635 Old Knik Road, Wasilla, AK. 99654) or the Fairbanks Community Food Bank (726 26th Avenue #101, Fairbanks, AK. 99701).