Memorial ride and celebration of life scheduled for Saturday, April 19

Richard “Dick” Martin, a longtime Talent resident and D&S Harley-Davidson owner of 50-plus years, will serve as inspiration for one final motorcycle cruise on April 19.

Martin, who died March 8 at the age of 89, will be the guest of honor, in spirit, for a memorial trek from Phoenix to Grants Pass and back. Family members hope the event will bring customers and longtime friends together to share stories about the family-oriented Oklahoma native who lived his life helping others and turned big risks into even bigger successes.

“He hated funerals,” daughter Terrie Martin said, so the family “refused to put him through one.”

“What he really loved to do was get people together and ride motorcycles and have a party so that’s what we decided to do,” she said.

The memorial ride and celebration of life event will kick off at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 19, from Martin’s beloved dealership, 3846 S. Pacific Highway, with an after-party set from 1 to 3 p.m.

Terrie Martin said it will be fitting to host a final hurrah for her dad in the parking lot of the business he and family invested five decades of blood, sweat and tears into; a business forged from a friendship built on a shared love of motorcycles in 1970.

Born Sept. 5, 1935, in Oklahoma, Dick Martin grew up between Oklahoma and Texas with a father who worked the oil fields.

“His family had a nomadic life. His dad worked in the oil fields as a driller and, once oil was found, they would move to the next site. They were constantly moving from Oklahoma to Texas and back again and never owned a home,” Terrie said.

A graduate of tiny Bowlegs High School in Seminole County, Oklahoma, Martin’s 35-member graduating class was the biggest the school had ever seen. Dick, Terrie said, “played every sport, ran moonshine for a local still — because it allowed him to drive fast and get paid for it — and met the girl he’d call his wife for the next 70 years.”

Wife Marie Martin remembers briefly moving to Kimball County, Nebraska, where her husband worked the oil fields after high school, noting, “He went to Kimball, to work in the oil field with his dad. He came home for Christmas in 1954 and I went back with him,” she said.

“Mom and dad let me get married. I had just turned 17 and he was 19. They said I could go as long as I still graduated.”

A visit by his in-laws the same year, in 1955, came with an offer to escape the oil fields and head west. By 1965,“they had three daughters, a new ranch house in a suburb of San Jose, the fastest ski boat on Lake Berryessa and a Harley-Davidson in the garage,” said Terrie.

A motorcycle ride in the late 1960s to visit a friend in Southern Oregon set the wheels in motion for his eventual acquisition of D&S. The couple purchased their longtime home, an 11-acre farm on Colver Road, two years before leaving California.

“Dad visited and then went back and worked two jobs to bank enough money to move here and figure out what he wanted to do. Dad was a risk taker. He would absolutely jump off a cliff and make wings on the way down,” Terrie said.

Marie Martin said the couple moved to the Colver Road property in 1970 and “had it figured out so he didn’t have to go right to work for 5 or 6 months.” 

“His friend, Dan Earhart, owned the Harley shop in Central Point — a little hole in the wall place on Pine Street,” she said.

“Dan was a paraplegic, hit by shrapnel in World War II. Dick went in every day — did oil changes and was pretty good working on bikes. Dick would hang out for the morning or afternoon or whatever.”

In less than a year, Earhart offered Martin the dealership, Terrie said.

Terrie said, “Dad hung out there and just worked on motorcycles, for free, for like 6 to 8 months. He finally said, ‘I gotta go. My savings are gone. I gotta go find a job.’ And Dan said, ‘No, you need to buy the dealership.’ Dad said, ‘No, you didn’t hear me. I don’t have any money.’ Dan told him just take over the mortgage and, someday, if you make any money, you can pay me back.”

One condition set by Earhart, D&S stood for Dan and son, Terrie said. “Dan’s son didn’t want it, but Dan wanted the name to stay.”

A year after taking over, Martin moved D&S into an old mattress factory in Phoenix. During the first decade of owning D&S, the couple ran a janitorial service — cleaning banks and office buildings at night — to stay afloat while growing D&S. By 2000, the couple and three adult daughters — Terrie Martin, Sandy Unruh and Kim O’Toole — moved D&S to its present location on South Pacific Highway in Phoenix.

Eventually moving into part-time retirement, Dick and Marie traveled the U.S. attending dealer shows and embraced life as grandparents. Martin played sports — basketball into his 60s and softball, for 50 years, until he was 80. He was a Mason, 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Freemason and a Shriner. 

Medford resident Bob Crum — a fellow rider, Mason and Shriner — said he was grateful for a 40-year friendship noting, “He was friends to everybody — he really was. He was a good guy – never drank or smoked. I don’t think I ever heard him cuss. He was just a great guy. … He was the real deal.”

Dick Martin befriended people “from one end of this state, way down into California, anybody that was a Harley-Davidson rider,” Crum said. “He was a man’s man. When he had to be tough, he was tough, but overall, just one of the kindest people.

“It’s a big loss for us but he’s in a better place. … he’d made his ride.”

Marie Martin said her late husband, no doubt, had made his final ride “at full speed,” as he was known for doing most things.

“He never stopped playing or riding,” she said. “He had one speed for everything, and it was wide open.”

She said she cherished the life that the couple had lived.

“We didn’t live an exciting life, but we lived a good life. We took motorcycle rides. He hunted a lot. … He had done everything he wanted to do but fly an airplane. He wanted an airplane so bad, but I said, ‘No, because if you do, next I’ll have an airstrip here on my 11 acres, down the middle of the alfalfa field,’” she said with a laugh.

“I’m surprised he didn’t have one stashed somewhere. … He wanted to fly so bad. I told him he had to just fly on his Harley… and he did.”

Terrie Martin said her father’s legacy would be that he taught his kids, grandkids and great-grandkids to live large and take chances. She remembered a customer in recent years who showed up with $2,000 in cash for a repair decades earlier that her dad had done for free and told him “to pay it back or pay it forward.”

“He helped people and he dreamed big. He took risks and he succeeded on most of his risks, which turned into amazing successes,” his daughter said.

“He was everyone’s favorite guy. … He lived a good life. He did it right.”

Martin is survived by his wife; three daughters; six grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; nieces and nephews; three sisters; and a large extended family. An obituary is posted online.

In lieu of flowers, family members asked that those who want to send condolences donate to Shriners Children’s hospital.

Reach reporter Buffy Pollock at 458-488-2029 or buffy.pollock@rv-times.com. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal.