Darrell Wyrick

WYRICK, SUNDEN, WYRICK-SOLARI, HELLWEG, OLSON, WORDEN, THOMPSON

Posted By: Amanda Lensing (email)
Date: 6/15/2015 at 11:57:18

Darrell Wyrick died peacefully on Thursday, May 14, 2015.

A Memorial Celebration for him will be held at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 27th in the 4th Floor Meeting Rooms at The Levitt Center (1 West Park Road, 100 Levitt Center, Iowa City, IA). A reception will follow in the Wyrick Rotunda.

* * *

Darrell Dewey Wyrick was known throughout his life as a kind, gentle, sociable and fun-loving leader. He was born in Fort Madison, Iowa, October 4, 1933 to Dewey George and Florence (Sunden) Wyrick. His three older sisters, Lorraine, Lois and Vera, often joked that when he was first born they were disappointed that he wasn’t the baby raccoon they had wanted. But their baby brother was welcomed into their loving family and Darrell was surrounded by an even larger, but close-knit extended family throughout southeast Iowa who valued each other and the people in their communities.

Darrell’s love of sports and academics was nurtured in Fort Madison. He was a devoted fan of the FMHS Bloodhounds sports teams, his mother took him fishing almost every day after his grade school classes and he even made fly fishing lures for himself and others. During his early years, he often traveled with his dad Dewey making bulk oil deliveries to Phillips gas stations and he attended church at the Santa Fe Methodist Church with his mother Florence. Both of his parents helped people in need in the community in countless ways.

In high school Darrell was elected 1951 Senior Class President and Homecoming King. He was an excellent student and was Valedictorian of his high school class. Darrell’s family was confident that he would go to “Iowa City,” which was their word for S.U.I. or “The State University of Iowa” as the University of Iowa was known at that time.

During his years at the University of Iowa, Darrell was elected to Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK), the University’s leadership fraternity, and to Tau Beta Pi, the College of Engineering’s leadership fraternity. He was editor of “The Transit,” the engineering student magazine headquartered at the College of Engineering Building. It was there that he had a chance meeting with his wife-to-be, Shirley Lee Brown of Altoona, Iowa, a UI student working parttime in an engineering faculty office. They were married in February 1956 while both were still students.

Darrell was a loyal, devoted Iowa Hawkeye fan, and he especially loved basketball, football and wrestling. He rarely missed a home UI football game from 1943 through the 2014 season. The only time he could tolerate “red” as a team color was when his favorite St. Louis Cardinals played!

Judging by today’s standards, Darrell Wyrick in 1962 was an unlikely candidate to assume leadership of the University of Iowa Foundation, the University of Iowa’s fundraising organization, in its infancy. After all, he was a practicing chemical engineer living in the Twin Cities, but with B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Iowa! His ability to find support for his alma mater surfaced at the first ever telephone solicitation campaign (run by him) in Minneapolis.

It was the farsightedness of University leaders such as Loren Hickerson, UI Alumni Association Executive Director and the quarter-time head of the Foundation (founded in 1956) and Virgil Hancher, President of the State University of Iowa that put Darrell in charge of the fledgling University of Iowa Foundation in January 1962. It was a time when private fundraising for public institutions was also in its infancy.

These leaders recognized Darrell’s personal qualities, which blended extreme love of and devotion to the University of Iowa, with his belief that people sharing these loyalties could be convinced to join him in support of and service to the University along with its many programs, its faculty, administration and staff.

With his unique sense of humor, his warmth, his high energy and drive, along with a clear vision of “relationship-building” and “organization-building,” Darrell helped mold the UI Foundation over four decades into a strong and effective institution.

Above all, Darrell’s unwavering and optimistic approach also emphasized news and information-sharing about the many aspects of the University of Iowa and the University’s needs and aspirations. By 1998, the Foundation’s gift flow and its assets (more than one-half billion dollars) had grown by a factor of 1,000 over its first year in 1956.

Darrell’s style of leadership led to the great success of the UI Foundation as it grew. He valued every member of his hard-working staff and considered the Foundation Family a part of his extended family. He was always first to credit the Foundation’s success to the cooperation of his own family, to the Foundation Family, and to University of Iowa administrators, faculty, and staff and to the steadily growing numbers of donors. In a heavy travel schedule, Darrell reached out across the country to connect Iowa alumni and friends of the University to the “family” of University of Iowa supporters.

Darrell’s wife Shirley partnered with him in a great many UIF and UI events and helped Darrell host home parties and dinners (especially in the early years when there were no catering services in the area) while earning her M.A. and M.F.A. degrees in art, being a Mom and establishing her career as artist/sculptor.

Darrell and Shirley’s children -- Craig, Anne and Lane -- were cherished, encouraged, nurtured, counseled and helped in many other ways throughout their lives by their dad. He made them part of the larger “Foundation Family” as they grew up, and they often helped and participated at parties and private gatherings in various roles. Each of the children entered a creative field: Craig as television producer and director in Los Angeles; Anne as graphic designer in Maryland, and California and as a secondary art educator in Iowa City; Lane as documentary filmmaker and medical videographer in St. Louis.

Darrell and Shirley’s family enjoyed annual vacations spent either fishing and camping on the Canadian/Minnesota border lakes at the End of the Gunflint Trail or traveling together by car or train on many long trips around the United States.

Darrell was an avid supporter of the arts and academic side of campus having had a central role in helping shape our current UI campus, with significant campaigns to build the first UI Museum of Art, to restore Old Capitol, and to construct Carver Hawkeye Arena, the Pappajohn Business Building, the Blank Honors Center and the Seamans Center for Engineering Arts and Sciences. The Iowa Endowment 2000 campaign begun in 1985 was the first UI Foundation capital campaign directed toward establishing a permanent endowment fund to benefit the UI. This endowment fund continues to be built upon and is invaluable in providing ongoing support for the University.

The I Club and the Presidents Club were formed during Darrell’s tenure and he lent his personal financial support to those programs and to almost every UI Foundation program. In addition, Darrell oversaw organization of five significant international Presidents Club tours: in 1978 with UI President Willard “Sandy” Boyd and Ulfert Wilke, the first UI Museum of Art Director; in 1990, 1992 an 1994 with UI President Hunter Rawlings III; and in 1997 with UI President Mary Sue Coleman. In the 1990s, the Wyricks and Olga Sassine, Director of the Presidents Club, took preliminary tours to assure that each tour could be outstanding.

During his tenure, Darrell worked effectively with each UI President and he cherished each one’s unique contribution to success in gaining support for the University of Iowa’s many colleges and programs. Darrell stepped down from the presidency of the UI Foundation in mid-1998, was awarded President Emeritus status and retired in mid-1999.

Although Darrell occupied the UI Foundation’s CEO’s office in the Levitt Center for University Advancement (LCUA) for only a few months, he capped his career by working with New York architect Charles Gwathmey in designing and building the Levitt Center. The UI Foundation Board of Directors named the rotunda of the building The Wyrick Rotunda to honor Darrell.

Darrell received many honors from the University, including the 1992 Distinguished Alumni Award of Service; the 1996 Hawk of the Year Award; the 2006 Hancher-Finkbine Alumni Medallion and he was made a UI Honorary Letterman. He was Grand Marshal of the 1997 Homecoming Parade, an honor that he shared with his staff who marched behind him bearing a “Foundation Family” banner.

Wyrick also became known as the “Dean of Big Ten Fund Raising” through his leadership of the annual Big Ten Fund Raisers Institute (BTFRI) that was led with exuberance and was held annually at Mackinac Island, Michigan.

In his early years in Southeast Iowa, Darrell did quite a big of hunting for small game with family members, but fishing was Darrell’s favorite personal “sport.” He became one of a six-person group of friends that called itself The Hawkeye Flying Fishing Group. They annually fished (and debated) together in western Canada and Alaska for over 30 years.

One of Darrell’s most enjoyable avocations post-retirement was being “Hawkeye Spirit Leader” at Friday Garden Club lunch meetings held before home UI football games. His enthusiasm and spontaneous wit were greatly enjoyed. The Club was formed by Bump Elliott and Earle Murphy and was named to indicate that men too could have “garden clubs.” Darrell was also a long-time member of The Club, an over 100-year-old group of leaders in the Iowa City/Eastern Iowa area.

Darrell loved music. He was a self-taught ukulele and harmonica player and had a razor sharp memory for song lyrics, just as he had for people’s names and their personal stories. Darrell enlivened many events and family gatherings with his singing, including many hilarious original song parodies and during his retirement years, he regularly took vocal singing lessons. He was also a good dancer, a passion he enjoyed from the time he took tap dancing lessons as a child.

During his retirement years, Wyrick devoted much of his time (in collaboration with his wife Shirley) to writing his memoirs about the history of the UI Foundation and the important relationships that allowed it to grow to a world-class organization. “ON IOWA! A Memoir by Darrell D. Wyrick -- His Firsthand Look at the Birth and Growth of the University of Iowa Foundation During Its First Four Decades” is a 3-volume work over 1000 pages that is currently in the UI Archives, Special Collections at the UI Main Library -- public access to this important reference will not be available until April 2021.

* * *

Darrell is survived by his wife of 59 years, Shirley; his son Craig Wyrick-Solari, Craig’s wife Annette and their children Jessica and James Darrell, of Los Angeles; his daughter Anne Wyrick of Iowa City; his son Lane Wyrick, Lane’s wife Angela and their children Joseph and Lianna of St. Peters, Missouri. He is also survived by his sister Vera Hellweg and brother-in-law Al Olson and his nieces and nephews: Julie, Shawn, Dale, Jennifer, Peggy, Jane, Cheri and Kent and their families, along with many cousins and their families.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Dewey and Florence Wyrick, and his sisters Lorraine Worden and Lois Thompson.

* * *
Even in the last days of his life, as he ended 24 years of living with Parkinson’s Disease, Darrell’s gentle and loving nature remained with him. People who worked with Darrell as well as most of those who knew him agree that, in the words of one of his old favorite songs, “to know him is to love him.”

Darrell’s family wishes to thank his doctor Jason Wilbur and the staffs of Legacy Gardens, Iowa City; Windmill Manor, Coralville; and Hospice Compassus, Cedar Rapids, for their special care for Darrell in the final few months of his life.

The family requests no flowers. Instead, please consider a memorial contribution to The Darrell & Shirley Wyrick Excellence Fund for the University of Iowa Foundation or to a charity of your choice.

In parting, Darrell would want us to say,
ON IOWA!! GO HAWKS!!

Lensing Funeral & Cremation Service
 

Johnson Obituaries maintained by Cindy Booth Maher.
WebBBS 4.33 Genealogy Modification Package by WebJourneymen