Donald Wyatt, Sr.

WYATT, Donald Burnice - age 91. Donald B. Wyatt, a longtime community and church volunteer, and elected official in Swartz Creek, Mich., died with family by his side on March 9 after a brief illness. He was 91. The funeral will be at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 14, at Swartz Creek United Methodist Church, 7400 Miller Road, with the Rev. Daniel Bowman officiating. Interment will follow at 1:30 p.m. at Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly, Mich. Visitation will be from 1 - 4 p.m. and 6 - 8 p.m. Monday at Sharp Funeral Homes, Miller Road Chapel, 8138 Miller Road in Swartz Creek and before the funeral from 10:00 - 11:30 a.m. Tuesday at the church. Donald was born Nov. 26, 1931 at Providence Hospital in Detroit, the son of Burnice M. and Mena H. (Craven) Wyatt. He was a quarterback on the football team and a member of the tennis team at Detroit Southwestern High School before graduating in 1951. He worked at the downtown J.L. Hudson’s store and in 1952 enlisted in the U.S Air Force. Don received air traffic control training in Biloxi, Miss., before his first control tower assignment in El Paso, Texas. A year later he began his wartime deployment at the Itazuke Air Force Base in Fukuoka, Japan, where U.S. warplanes started and ended their combat missions over the Korean peninsula.While stationed there he met Yukie Fukahori and a few months later they married in a traditional Japanese ceremony. In November 2022 they celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary. Both said it was, “Love at first sight.” They were inseparable. After the war Don was first stationed at Malstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Mont., and later Larson Air Force Base in Moses Lake, Wash., where the couple’s oldest son, Donald Jr., was born in 1959. He was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant in 1960 and joined the civilian U.S. Federal Aviation Agency as an air traffic controller. He trained in Oklahoma City, Okla., and first worked at the control tower at Willow Run Airport near Ypsilanti and before transferring to Flint’s Bishop Airport. During his career he was a supervisor at Bishop and a tower chief at Ann Arbor Municipal airport and at Chicago’s Midway Airport. His friends at Bishop nicknamed him "Big Feather" when he became a supervisor in the late 1960s, a term of endearment that he loved. After his time in Chicago he returned to Bishop in the 1980s and retired in 1989. The couple lived on Falcon Street in Detroit and on Cherokee Avenue in Flint before moving to Swartz Creek in 1961 and welcoming two more children to their family: Susan in 1962, and Douglas in 1967. After his military service, Don devoted his life to raising his family and serving his community, both as an elected official, an appointed representative and volunteer. These included: Swartz Creek school board member and president for 11 years; Swartz Creek planning commission member for 4 years; Swartz Creek tax board of review member for 6 years; Swartz Creek Food Pantry organizer and volunteer; Swartz Creek senior center volunteer driving seniors to appointments and delivering meals; Flint’s North End Soup Kitchen volunteer making and serving meals; Boy Scouts of America Tall Pines Council volunteer. He was a man of deep faith and an active member of Swartz Creek United Methodist Church for many decades. Don demonstrated his faith through action as a leader of the congregation’s youth group, cooking and cleaning for hundreds of fundraising lunches and dinners, and helping the church grow and prosper as a trustee and member of various congregational leadership teams. In 2009, Don and Yukie were selected the senior King & Queen for Swartz Creek’s Hometown Days in honor of their many community contributions. Don also enjoyed spending his time on a variety of hobbies. His first love was shooting sports, where he first excelled as a member of the Air Force’s competition target pistol team and later with various target pistol teams representing Flint area clubs at competitions across Michigan and the Midwest. He was a founder and life member of the Swartz Creek Sportsman and Conservation Club, member of the Flushing Rifle and Pistol Club, and was a certified firearms instructor for the National Rifle Association. He was also a life member of the NRA. He often said it was a privilege to introduce others to shooting sports and teach them how to responsibly handle and safely use firearms. In addition to handguns, Don was a black powder enthusiast building and shooting muzzle-loader rifles of various kinds. He enjoyed portraying a Continental Army soldier circa 1775 at reenactments around Michigan. With Yukie’s help he recreated period uniforms and regalia for these events. As an aviation enthusiast Don built and flew radio-controlled model airplanes and was a member of the Flint Aero RC Club. He became an avid golfer later in life and into his late 80s could be seen speed walking around the Genesee Valley Mall for exercise until COVID-19 restrictions shut things down. He drove his little red Toyota until December 2022. Always thrifty, in retirement he worked part-time behind the gun counter at Gander Mountain in Swartz Creek (for the employee discount, he’d say) and cutting grass at a local golf course (for the reduced greens fees). Surviving are his wife, Yukie; son Donald (Roxanne) Wyatt Jr. from Flint; daughter Susan (Steve) Jackson from Santa Clarita, Calif., and son Douglas (Annie) Wyatt from Ann Arbor; brother James Wyatt from Miamisburg, Ohio; sister Jeanine (Dennis) Walker from Melvindale, Mich.; grandsons Dr. Dylan (Jenna) Wyatt from Duluth, Minn., Sawyer Wyatt from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Blake Jackson from Sherman Oaks, Calif., Eric Jackson from Santa Clarita, Calif., and Logan Wyatt and Cole Wyatt from Ann Arbor; great granddaughter Persephone Wyatt from Duluth; dozens of cousins, nieces and nephew; and hundreds of  friends across the country. His family often said that Don never met anybody that didn’t become a friend. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Don’s memory to the Swartz Creek United Methodist Church.