January 12, 2017

Grower Spotlight: Dick Steltzner

 It was January 7, 1976 and only eight days remained in duck season. Dick Steltzner and a friend had spent the better part of the day hunting in Chiles Valley, but had little to show for their efforts. They loaded their meager haul into Steltzner’s single engine plane and pointed back towards Napa, but Steltzner remained unsatisfied. Somewhere close to the east-facing slopes of the Vaca mountains, he decided to buzz some irrigation ponds, flying lower and slower than is recommended, in the hopes of spotting some ducks. Instead, he unbalanced his typically nimble little “flying jeep”, as he calls it, and smashed into the hillside, ending ‘wheels up’ in the worst way imaginable.