By Cody Wendt | FāVS News Reporter
Born in Seattle on Easter Sunday, April 12, 1936, the Rev. Jim Dyson did a great deal of living before his passing this Jan. 14, three months shy of 90-years-old.
Dyson graduated from South Kitsap High School in Port Orchard, Washington, then attended Northwest Christian College in Eugene, Oregon, followed by Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana.
He would spend most of his adult life serving a series of pastoral posts around the Inland Northwest region.
A certain age group of Palouse-area residents may remember his tenure at The United Church of Moscow from 1969-73, during which he made a sufficiently lasting impression that some of his former parishioners from that congregation were still driving out to visit him for his birthday last year.
A memorial was held for Dyson this past Saturday at Shalom United Church of Christ in Richland, Washington, where he was a member late in life.
In the days leading up to the memorial, some of his longtime friends and associates offered their recollections of Dyson.
Illustrative anecdotes include things like road trips on which Dyson could recite jokes from memory for hours on end without running out of material; his lending out books from a personal collection that rivaled the public library in volume and range of subjects; and engaging visits with a retired Dyson on his daily ‘pilgrimage’ for coffee at a venerated local institution in Richland known as the Spudnut Shop.
A hunger for life
Holly Singh, now a 59-year-old special education teacher, knew Jim Dyson from the age of 12 when he served as her minister at Northwest United Protestant Church in Richland.
“His sermons were very, very carefully prepared, and they always were relevant to even a kid like me,” she said. “He preached about agape love one Sunday, and I realized that that’s who Jim was, and that’s what he represented, was agape love.”
Singh recalls Dyson renting out a U-Haul van to take the youth group on “adventures,” like trips to the beach, that she would cherish through the years. Dyson was an enthusiast for the Myers-Briggs personality test, on which both he and Singh tested as ENFJs.
Though she moved away after finishing high school, Singh remained in touch with Dyson for the rest of his life. She took an active role in looking after him following the passing of his wife, Kathy, in 2019.
“When he started getting frail, I told him I would take care of him if he needed me to,” she said. “When he got frail and that time came — and his kids love him; he’s got wonderful kids and wonderful stepkids, but none of them were able to — he lived with me and my family for the last 18 months of his life.”
Though their conveyance was now somewhat smaller than a U-Haul van, Singh and Dyson continued their tradition of exploits to the end.
“He would be in his wheelchair, and we would go on adventures, or in his walker,” she said. “He was never adverse to doing things. He just had a hunger for life and a love and an openness.”
A wide range of experiences
Retired eye doctor Quinn Smith met Dyson after moving to Richland just past the turn of the century. The two served together on the church council and in the chaplaincy at Shalom, becoming longtime friends in the process.
“The chaplaincy was a big part of Jim’s life, and he was just so revered as someone who was on the board who had contributed so much to the community,” Smith said.
One outreach that particularly stands out in Smith’s mind was a prison ministry program Dyson “felt a very deep calling” to serve in.
“It was talking with inmates and being there for them, whether that be spiritual counseling or just to have the connection of talking with them,” Smith said. “I know he was always very modest, and said that he learned so much, as any of us would, from the people who were in jail at that time. It gives you a sense of the wide range of experiences he had here in the community.”
Stories to tell
Freshly retired from a job with the city government in Pasadena, California, Beverly Wykoff first came to Richland around 2015 to stay with her father Bob Wykoff, who had just gone into hospice care. Among his most frequent visitors was Dyson.
“(Dyson) just came as a friend — he wasn’t (Bob’s) chaplain,” she said. “They would have these wonderful visits. (Bob) wasn’t able to move on his own — his legs went out — but his mind was still there. He enjoyed those visits.”
The last picture Wykoff ever took of her father featured him and Dyson toasting to one another. Her dad fell into a coma and passed soon thereafter, but Wykoff, who remained to look after her mother, had not seen the last of Dyson.
“I got to know Jim a bit from seeing him at church,” she said. “He was visiting my mother, too. He was always that sort of person; he would make a point, if people couldn’t get out, of going and visiting with them. He had good stories to tell.”
Wykoff eventually became a part of Dyson’s inner circle of friends, who had a sense last year that the end was not far off.
“They were very prescient,” she said. “They said they weren’t sure he’d make it to 90, so they had a big 89th birthday celebration for him. We all went out to dinner, and the stories he and his friends would tell about their time in seminary — always full of fun stories. Just a wonderful person to be with.”
Making others feel seen
The distinct running thread through these sets of recollections lies in Dyson’s commitment to loving others in proactive, tangible ways that often changed their lives.
“It was love without expectation, and he loved everybody, and he made everybody feel seen,” Singh said. “When he looked at us, he saw us, and that’s a pretty rare quality in a person.”
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