RIGHT TIME RIGHT PLACE

Navy sailor hooked after fishing, The Graduate

Kathy Dailey and Ray Hightower were married on Nov. 29, 1969, at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock. They were introduced by Ray’s sister, who worked with Kathy. They went fishing on their first date. “She baited her own hook and fished along with me and I thought, ‘Man, this is what I’ve been looking for,’” Ray says.
Kathy Dailey and Ray Hightower were married on Nov. 29, 1969, at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock. They were introduced by Ray’s sister, who worked with Kathy. They went fishing on their first date. “She baited her own hook and fished along with me and I thought, ‘Man, this is what I’ve been looking for,’” Ray says.

Kathy Dailey invited Ray Hightower to go fishing and after that, they were both hooked.

Ray's sister, Alberta, worked with Kathy in the trust department at The Commercial National Bank of Little Rock, now Regions Bank, back in March 1967. Alberta wanted Kathy to meet her brother, who had just been commissioned at U.S. Navy officers' candidate school and had trained on fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters in Pensacola, Fla. He had been assigned to a squadron in San Diego, and he stopped by the bank as he was traveling through Little Rock to see his family on his way there.

The first time I saw my future spouse:

She says: “He was nice looking and he had his uniform on. He just impressed me with the way he acted.”

He says: “She was a nice looking girl and friendly. She had all of the attributes that I was looking for, especially when we went fishing. I don’t want to say she was a girl of my dreams, but effectively that’s what she was, especially after she took me fishing.”

On our wedding day:

He says: “I thought it would be the other way around but I was cool and she was nervous. I could remember all the stuff we were supposed to do, even if I wasn’t Catholic, and I would have to tug on her when she was supposed to kneel and whatever we had to do.”

She says: “The whole day was just kind of magical.”

My advice for a long happy marriage:

He says: “Yes ma’am.”

She says: “You have to be understanding. It is also love and forgiveness and patience.”

Ray, 26 then, was dressed in his summer uniform. Kathy thought he looked nice and was impressed with his calm, confident demeanor.

"I asked him some questions and found out he liked to fish," says Kathy, who was 22 when they met. "My parents had a farm with a lake on it out in the Bryant area, so I invited him to go fishing. He was shocked that I would bait my own hook."

After their fishing excursion, they got cleaned up and went to dinner at Hank's Doghouse and then went to a theater to see The Graduate.

"I can't remember if I saw him for a couple more dates after that or not, but then he left for San Diego," Kathy says.

He called her occasionally but long-distance calls were expensive.

"We wrote letters," she says.

The Vietnam War was raging and Ray was deployed to the Gulf of Tonkin. His ship was called back a couple of months earlier than expected.

"When you're in the Navy, you can't disclose anything about a ship's movements," Ray says. "So I wired her and said something like, 'Prepare to fly west,' so she knew I was coming home."

Kathy quickly made arrangements to fly west. She had already used her allotted vacation time at the bank for the year, but she went to her boss and explained the situation.

"I said, 'If you won't let me go, I'll have to leave, I'll quit,'" she says.

He agreed to let her go, provided she would come back, either to stay or to train someone else to do her job.

"She was there waiting for me when the ship pulled in, and I didn't even know that she was there," he says.

He had to be on base during much of the time she was in town, but they took in as many sights together as they could. Over a picnic of bread, cheese and summer sausage at Balboa Park, Ray proposed.

"I had wanted an engagement ring, but he kept putting it off until, gosh, just a couple of days before I had to come back," Kathy says. "We had to go find a ring because I wasn't going back home without one."

It didn't matter that they hadn't spent much time in the same state since they met.

"We got to know each other better because of the letters we wrote," Kathy says. "The most we saw each other during the 18 months we were together before we got married, totally, was about two months. It wasn't a whole lot."

Still, she says, she liked his mannerisms and knew his family well, and they enjoyed the time they spent together.

They were married on Nov. 29, 1969, in the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock.

Ray, a Methodist, wasn't familiar with Catholicism but his military training kicked in to help him keep a cool head and figured out how to get them both through the ceremony.

"We didn't even have any plans on where we were going to go after that. We were just going to go find a place, and we weren't going to tell anybody," Ray says.

They hurried out of the reception and into Kathy's waiting Dodge Coronet, driven by Ray's brother, but someone was trying to be funny by blocking the car in. Ray's brother backed up and hit another car with their still-open passenger side door, and Ray had to do some repair work, so it would close once they reached their honeymoon destination, Hot Springs.

The Hightowers spent a couple of years in San Diego before returning to Little Rock so Ray could work with Kathy's father, Dalton Dailey, in the family furniture and auction business.

He found he had a knack for auctioneering during a trip to El Dorado when his father-in-law's voice faded, and he and Kathy dedicated their time to that. They retired about five years ago.

They have two children -- Ryan Hightower of Kansas City, Mo., and Kristie Obert of Little Rock. They also have three grandchildren.

Ray says Kathy has only gone fishing a handful of times since their first date, but she supports -- or at least tolerates -- his passion for parachuting out of airplanes. He has jumped 1,800 times and hopes to make it to at least 2,000.

"We've had our differences over the years, but somehow we have managed to stick it out," she quips. But then she knew they would all along. "It was just a gut feeling."

If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 425-7228 or email:

kdishongh@sbcglobal.net

photo

Special to the Democrat-Gazette

Ray and Kathy Hightower were only in the same state for a couple of months, total, during the 18 months they dated before getting married. They got to know each other through the long letters they exchanged, and Kathy had no doubts he was the one for her. “It was a gut feeling,” Kathy says. “I liked his mannerisms and I knew his family fairly well.”

High Profile on 11/17/2019

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