Dean Pickett (1944-1969)

Dean was born to the parents of Margaret and Robert Pickett (a professor of Agronomy at Purdue University), as the oldest among his sibling sisters Jan and Paula and younger brother Marty.  They grew up on Blackhawk Lane in Wabash Shores across the cul-de-sac from our class’s Harold Moses.  Dean loved music and played clarinet in our high school marching band.  Tuned to Dick Biondi on WLS, his radio was always on even when he was sleeping.  Dean was an active member of the youth group at Covenant Presbyterian Church along with our Carolyn Schilling Gery.  As a strapping young man Dean energetically embraced life with passion, seeking new experiences wanting to figure out who he was.  Struggling with academics in high school and at Purdue, he joined the Navy during the Viet Nam conflict.  Shoulder wrestling injuries suffered in high school led to a medical discharge in California, where Dean principally stayed for the rest of his life.  There he met a woman he referred to as “the future Mrs. Dean Hobbs Pickett.”  But before they could get married, Dean was taken from us in a collapsed snow bank in Yosemite National Park in the spring of 1969.  He was buried at Sunset Cemetery in Manhattan, Kansas near where his parents were from.  Gifts from Purdue and the local community were used to build Pickett Memorial Park, located at the southeast corner of W. Stadium Avenue and McCormick Road in West Lafayette, Indiana.