A graveside service with military honors for Herbert will be held Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 1:00 PM at Veterans Memorial Cemetery of Western Colorado, 2830 Riverside Pkwy., Grand Junction, CO 81501.
Herbert Hugh Chesney, Sr. was the second of three children born to Dorothy and David Chesney in Muncie, Kansas, and he outlived them all. Known in his birth family as “Herbie”, the family moved to Clovis, New Mexico when he was 12, where he graduated high school in 1951.
Herbie had a paper route at ten, and was a “soda jerk” in his early teens. While in Boy Scouts of America, he attained the rank of “Eagle Scout” at 16. At that time, about 10,000 young men per year earned the honor.
He would emerge as “Herb” to those coming to know him in adulthood, many of whom were in the airline industry. Herb received initial airline industry training with Frontier Airlines in Kansas City as a young adult.
When Herbert was drafted and sworn into the United States Army, he was living in Clovis, New Mexico. He was “held back” for some eight to nine days after the other recruits were sent on to their second basic training. This was a bit disconcerting, because he was not told why, and was naturally curious about what the Army had in store for him. He occupied himself with cleaning the barracks and looking for any useful chores to keep himself busy.
The reason for the delay in his assignment was made apparent when it was revealed he had been investigated (which we call “vetted” now) for the role the Army had in mind for him. As he had been in airline management as a civilian, he was assigned to the Army Security Agency, which was headquartered at Fort Devins, Massachusetts. He was trained to intercept and read Morse code, and through his training and diligence learned to read Morse code at 24 words per minute. His goal was 25 w.p.m.
After his training was secured, and with his top-secret security clearance, he was transferred to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, where he was given a specific radio frequency to monitor and tasked with intercepting the codes before forwarding to specialists trained to “decode” the secret messages. The Morse code was delivered in a pattern of four words and a space, four words, and a space, and so on.
He continued in that role for three years, until his honorable discharge in 1955; he served four more years in the Army Reserves. He returned to his civilian job with Frontier Airlines. From there, he moved to be Manager at Bonanza Airlines which, through mergers and acquisitions, eventually became Delta Airlines, from which he retired after a long career.
Herb, thankfully, learned to use computers, and on his personal computer at home in his retirement, composed, printed and edited in pencil the previous four paragraphs, before putting it aside in a file. His wife of 37 years had it saved and in a place to be useful when the time came. Now, included within his obituary for those reading here to see.
Herb’s life intersected through his work in the airline travel industry to bring him his final life partner, Peggy. In the 1980’s, he was working as a Product Manager for Aspen Ski Tours. She was based in Detroit, Michigan booking ski tours for United Airlines.
Meeting for the first time in 1984, they married in June of 1986 in Aspen, Colorado and lived in the area until after their respective retirements. They moved to Battlement Mesa initially, then to the hub city in western Colorado of Grand Junction, where Peggy continues to reside.
Over their healthier, earlier decades, they traveled in various R.V.’s, mostly west of Denver, Colorado, with Arizona being among Herb’s favorites to revisit because of family there.
They white water rafted in the warmer times in Colorado and Utah and skied in the snowy times. They also took many trips by airplanes for adventures far from Colorado. Along with his family members, friends, and career, these provided abundant memories which he reflected upon as health impairments lead to limitations in lifestyle and changes in the occupation of his time.
Herb’s survivors include his wife, adult children, grandchildren, and many nieces, nephews, and cousins. Please join in memories here at the “Add a Memory” tab.
Photo credit: one of Herb’s friends at assisted living in recent years had provided the photo used above.
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