Dale Vernon Heidal

At an early age,Dale displayed a love of music,which enriched his life in many ways. For several years his grandmother, Thora Otterstad Heidal, lived with Dale's family. She was a passionate Christian woman. She spent many hours playing the piano and singing the great hymns of the church. Dale was always within hearing and usually seated on the piano bench with her. The beginning of his music journey was an unending stream of hymn tunes that came to his ears. He started voice and piano lessons in Junior High and continued through his college years.

After graduating from Olympia High School, he attended and graduated from Centralia College with an associate of Arts Degree. Following Centralia, he attended and graduated from Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA with a degree in Music Education/Choral Conducting.

Dale married his wife, Jean Tischer, while they were college students at Western Washington University. They first met at Jefferson Junior High where they shared time in music classes.

Dale was a music teacher in the Everett Public School District before he followed his second passion of books. He worked for Random House Publishing for several years. After a restructuring of management roles at Random House, Dale turned to computer work. He became a programmer for QWEST Communications (also known as, Pacific Northwest Bell, US WEST,and Century Link). He worked in computer programming for 29 years. During this same time, he was also the Music Director for several churches in the greater Seattle and Olympia areas. He worked constantly to provide meaningful music for Sunday Worship services and seasonal programs. In all of the churches, over 40 years, where he served, Dale also encouraged the children and youth to share their musical talents as well as the adults. He conducted chancel choirs, hand bell choirs, and many small ensembles .

For several years,Dale was active in charity work for the Northwest AIDS Foundation. Taking part in the annual Northwest Aids Walk, he was able to raise many thousands of dollars for that charity. He participated in local music theater, sang with Seattle Symphony Chorale, Seattle Masterworks Ensemble, and joined in small ensembles brought together by members of his phone company work groups.

Dale enjoyed travel, including two major vacation trips with his father to New York, England and Norway. Family vacation trips included New York, California, Florida, Alaska, England, France, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and Mexico.

A brain tumor in 1997 changed life for Dale as he relied on medications to replace his pituitary gland function. This seemed to start a long litany of medical problems for him in later years and lead to his death on Sunday, July 22, 2018.

He is survived by his wife, Jean; daughter, Sarah Nance of Orlando, FL and his sister, Nancy (Leon) Hill of Olympia. He is also survived by many nieces, nephews and cousins who all loved him dearly. He was preceded in death by his parents and older brother, Kenny, Jr.

The Celebration of Life for Dale will be held on Saturday, August 11th at 1 pm in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church, Olympia. A reception w ill follow in the Fellowship Hall.

A memorial fund in Dale's memory has been established at First Baptist Church, PO Box 533, Olympia, WA 98507.