Author Topic: Loma Linda's longtime spokesman Weismeyer dies at 67  (Read 2199 times)

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Loma Linda's longtime spokesman Weismeyer dies at 67
« on: January 25, 2011, 04:52:03 PM »
Loma Linda's longtime spokesman Weismeyer dies at 67
Traveled world to tell of denomination's health outreach

25 Jan 2011, Loma Linda, California, United States
LLU, ANN, Adventist Review staff



Richard W. Weismeyer traveled to more than 50 countries while serving as director of Loma Linda University's university relations department. He died January 12 at age 67. [photo courtesy LLU]
weismeyer-web.jpg

Richard W. Weismeyer, 67, the longtime Loma Linda University Adventist Health Sciences Center spokesman, who met U.S. presidents, foreign heads of state and traveled the world to report on the denomination's health outreach, died January 12 following a long battle with cancer.

During more than 50 years of association with Loma Linda University, an institution of Seventh-day Adventist Church world headquarters, Weismeyer wrote, edited, and guided others in chronicling stories of LLUAHSC for church members and the community.

Director of University Relations, Weismeyer traveled to more than 50 countries, filing stories by telephone or mail in the early days from Africa, Asia and Europe.

His trips weren't always safe: in 1974 and 1975, he reported the university's Overseas Heart Surgery Team's work in Saigon, Vietnam, after the pullout of U.S. troops; the team left eight weeks before the fall of the South Vietnamese government.

In 2003, Weismeyer accompanied Dr. Richard Hart, then-chancellor of Loma Linda University, to war-torn Afghanistan, two years after the U.S.-led coalition drove the Taliban from power. In 2008, Weismeyer was an embedded reporter with the U.S. Army 307th Medical Division, which offered dental services in Iraq.

He returned to Afghanistan last year amid intense fighting to follow up the story of a war victim who had been a long-term patient at the university hospital.

Through his work, Weismeyer met individuals from diverse walks of life -- then-sitting U.S. president Richard Nixon, former U.S. president George H. W. Bush, then-California governor and future U.S. president Ronald Reagan, members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

"Dick Weismeyer spent his entire career telling Loma Linda's stories," said Dr. Richard Hart, president of Loma Linda University. "He was a tireless and faithful photographer, traveler, editor, and manager.... We have lost a friend and colleague who will leave a huge void at this place."

In all, Weismeyer served the organization for more than 50 years, beginning with his employment in at the Loma Linda Market in 1960.

The establishment of Loma Linda was encouraged by Ellen G. White, a pioneering co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Weismeyer was born in the old Loma Linda Sanitarium on October 15, 1943 and earned his bachelor's degree from La Sierra College (now La Sierra University). After graduation and completion of an internship in the Public Information Office (forerunner of the office he led for so many years), Weismeyer was hired as a full-time employee at Loma Linda University in 1966.

He later returned to the campus of La Sierra University as a student, and in 2004, earned a master's degree in English. In recent years, Weismeyer had studied for a doctorate at La Sierra's School of Education.

"Dick Weismeyer was one of those individuals who quietly and without fanfare fulfilled his responsibilities with reliability, professional quality, dignity and class," said Lowell C. Cooper, a general vice president of the Adventist Church who serves as the chairman of the LLUAHSC board of trustees.

Weismeyer won many awards from the university and the community, both for the communication work that he produced, and also for the man he was. On Wednesday, January 12, the day he died, Mr. Weismeyer was named Citizen of the Year by the Loma Linda Chamber of Commerce.

His wife, Carol, two children and a sister, survive.

A memorial service is scheduled for 10 a.m., Sunday, February 6 at the Loma Linda University Church.
  For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven. Psalm 119:89