As early as his mid-teens, Keith Heefner realized he couldn't just daydream about becoming a pilot; he would have to invest some sweat. So he took a job at an airfield outside his hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, pumping aviation gas and washing down planes.
His humble toil paid off. He got the instruction he had aimed for.
"I'm certain Dad got his pilot's license before he got his driver's license," said his son, Scott Heefner of Woodbridge, Va. "Later on, when he took his first passenger up for a ride, it was his high school girlfriend -- who later became our mother."
At 22, he joined the Air Force and advanced quickly to pilot a KC-37 tanker aircraft. His navigator, Bob Smith of Tucker, said he was immediately impressed with Mr. Heefner's professionalism.
"Refueling a B-47 bomber in mid-air is a tricky procedure," he said, "but Keith carried it off again and again, always flying straight and level."
He maintained his steady hand at the controls as a commercial airline pilot, first for Southern Airways, then Republic, and finally Northwest.
"Keith was a top-notch aviator, very precise," said Jerry Weibel, a fellow Northwest pilot. "He flew by the book, and he trained other pilots by the book, too."
Mr. Heefner logged hundreds of thousands of miles at the controls of planes that ranged from the old reliable DC-3 to the wide-bodied DC-10, retiring in 1994 at the rank of captain.
A fellow pilot, Claude Allen of Jasper, said that when he was one of the speakers at a Northwest Airlines retirement "roast" for Mr. Heefner, he simply asked, "How can you roast someone who's squeaky clean?"
Keith Dean Heefner, 76, of Fayetteville, died Oct. 8 of complications of cancer at Southwest Christian Care. A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Southwest Christian Church in College Park. Parrott Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
Although flying was a lifelong passion, Mr. Heefner was just as industrious off the job.
"It seemed like every time we turned our backs, Dad would start a new project," his son said. "Dad built the family's vacation house at Lake Burton, a boathouse, even a one-car trolley that ran on a track 100 yards up a steep hill from the lake to our house.
"When I was a boy, Dad constructed one of the first dune buggies ever seen in the Atlanta area," his son said. "And for years, he would build all kinds of model airplanes, some of which he would pilot by radio control. He also built himself a kayak and a banjo and took lessons so he could learn to play bluegrass."
Mr. Heefner was a dependable repairman, too. Mr. Allen recalled that when the two of them were still Fayetteville neighbors he could always count on Mr. Heefner to fix appliances that went on the fritz.
He was also a friend to all forms of wildlife, said his daughter, Betsy Thoms of Fayetteville. One of the favorite causes was Operation Migration, a New York-based organization dedicated to guiding endangered whooping cranes on their north-south migratory route. He didn't accompany the migrating cranes himself, but he kept in touch via ham radio with ultra-light aircraft pilots who did and gave them up-to-date weather reports.
Frequently, he took injured wild animals into his home or to a veterinary clinic until they were well enough to be set free. One of them, a red-tailed hawk the family named Uno, hung around Mrs. Thoms' backyard for months afterward. "The hawk had been caught in a trap and had to have one leg amputated, but Dad not only taught it to balance on one leg, he also taught it to hunt with one leg," Mrs. Thoms said.
"Dad even paid a vet $75 to care for a timber rattlesnake he had found," she added.
"Wild or otherwise, animals seemed to gravitate to Keith," said his longtime friend, Mr. Smith. "They weren't afraid of him, and he wasn't afraid of them."
Survivors also include his wife, Beverly Heefner; a sister, Prudence Query of Brainerd, Minn.; a brother, Cary Heefner of Annapolis, Md., and five grandchildren.
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