Harold R. “Ike” Rhodes, 87, a loving husband and family man, outdoorsman, Air Force retiree, and the first Rice University Chief of Police, passed away on March 13, 2013. He lived a vibrantly healthy life until succumbing in his last year to the effects of myelo fibrosis and prostate cancer.
Ike was born December 1, 1925 to Hugh and Effie Rhodes on their ranch in Pleasant Grove, known locally as Possum Hollow— a farming community in Lee County, Texas, between Lexington and Rockdale. Though Ike was a Houstonian for almost 50 years, he remained connected to the Texas countryside of his birth. Indeed, he was still stringing barbed wire and clearing brush on his acreage in Pleasant Grove at the age of 80.
Ike is survived by his wife, Lorna Patschke Rhodes; his daughters, Diane Elise Rhodes, Rhonda Marie Rhodes, and Valencia Joy Rhodes Atchison; eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. In Diane’s family: children Willie Wells, wife Kristen, and daughter Kallista; Jessica Wells Bertrand and children Angelica, Lilliana, Brandon, Sebastian, and Joseph; Dianna Wells; and Melissa Wells. In Rhonda’s family: husband John Wile and children Douglas Wile and Rachel Wile. In Valencia’s family: children Logan Atchison and Ronnie Colonna. Ike is also survived by his brother and best friend Sterling Baker and wife Doris and their family; his Rhodes nieces and nephews JoNell Norville, Jeff Rhodes and wife Jane, Bill Rhodes and wife Jean, Seita R. Coleman, Leslie Rhodes, Lou Marie Leslie, and Sterlene Donohue, as well as their families and the families of those who predeceased him, named below.
On his wife Lorna Patschke’s side, Ike is survived by his brother-in-law Alton Behrend; Alton’s daughter Pamela Buenker and her husband Joe; his brother-in-law Charles Patschke and wife Linda and their son Curtis Patschke and daughter Robyn Elbrich and her husband Jay; his sister-in-law Jean Patschke and her daughter Sandra Pollock and son Steve Patschke and his wife Grace; as well as the children, children’s spouses, and grandchildren of those named above. Of those brothers- and sisters-in law that predeceased him, Ike is survived by the following nephews and nieces as well as their families: Edward Jackowski and wife Dolores, Delma Hill, and Gary Miller. Ike is also survived by numerous cousins and dear friends and neighbors.
Ike is preceded in death by his parents Hugh and Effie Rhodes, his brother Joe Rhodes and wife Lois, his brother Jack Rhodes and wife Seita, his nieces Shirley Rhodes and Margie Baker Thompson, his parents-in-law Carl and Alma Patschke, his brothers- and sisters-in-law: Elsie Jackowski Zoch and Alvin Zoch, Irene and Bill Miller, Ella Behrend, Alfred Patschke, and Wilbur “Sonny” and Jerry Patschke, and nephew Billy Miller. He is also preceded in death by many dear aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends.
Ike was born in Possom Hollow, near Lexington, Texas, the youngest of what was originally three brothers: Joe, Jack, and then Ike. His father was a farmer and rancher but also an oil field worker, so some of Ike’s childhood years were spent wherever the work took them, such as Wink, Texas and Hobbs, New Mexico. When Ike was in high school, he was graced with another brother, Sterling Baker, a youth close to his age who came to live with them and who remained his best friend throughout Ike’s life. In May 1943 at age seventeen, Ike graduated from Lexington High School. He passed the Aviation Cadet exam and then, on January 7, 1944— shortly after he turned eighteen— reported to active duty in the Army Air Corps Reserve. Thus began his twenty-year career in what soon became the U.S. Air Force.
After completing Basic Training at Sheppard A.F.B. in Wichita Falls, Texas, Ike was sent to Drake University for an intensive accelerated college course program. With the equivalent of two years of college behind him, Ike trained in Pre-Flight School in Santa Anna, California, where he became an Aviation Cadet. But, with World War II winding down, most in the pilot training program had to choose another field. Ike was soon enrolled in aerial gunnery school, first training for the B-24, then the B-29, with training assignments that included flying submarine patrol over the North Atlantic.
After WWII ended, Ike re-enlisted, choosing to go to Kadena AFB in Okinawa, to join the forces occupying the Far East. It was there that, on September 6, 1946, the B-29 he was flying in caught fire. Ike parachuted into the sea, to be rescued by a Japanese fishing boat. Only nine of the thirteen crew members survived. Ike next flew typhoon reconnaissance until his discharge in 1947. He helped his parents build a new house on their property in Possum Hollow, then re-enlisted, preserving his former rank and benefits.
Ike returned to Okinawa in his same squadron, flying recon along the coastlines of Russia and China. When the Korean War began, Ike was hand-picked to fly in the 91st Recon Squad. The squad stayed together for all 53 missions of flying recon in an RB-29 over North Korea from bases in Okinawa and Japan. In June 1951, Ike rotated back to the U.S., flying to far-off destinations in an RB-36 out of Travis AFB in California.
Ike was next selected by the commanding officer of Strategic Air Command for Project Eagle, a classified program to monitor the training program for B-29 crews, an assignment that took Ike to many locations in the U.S. It was while Ike was involved with Project Eagle that he married Lorna, who he had first dated in high school, a union that lasted for over 60 years.
Ike then acted as an instructor for B-29 crews, testing the gunners by implementing a scoring program, as well as teaching the instructors how to instruct. The Korean War now ending, Ike switched to an entirely different line: crash boat duty. It was while he worked in this rescue boat program out of Brookley AFB in Mobile, Alabama, that Diane Elise was born on January 22, 1956.
When the crash boat program was terminated, Ike made another radical move into IBM punch-card accounting (data processing). After training, Ike was transferred to Washington, D.C. It was here that Rhonda Marie was born on December 30, 1957. Within a few weeks, Ike was sent for eighteen months to Uxford, England, to work in the IBM room as the Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC), running operations for the NATO supply accounting for all of the USAF bases in England.
When the stint in England was up, Ike returned to Lorna and his two young girls, who had waited out his time away in Lexington, Texas. He moved with them to Inglewood, California, where he was assigned to Budget and Financial Accounting for space technology and weapons defense. He was sent to Noncommissioned Officer Academy at Kirkland AFB in New Mexico, considered the West Point for NCO’s—a school in preparation for higher rank. Afterward, Ike was given enormous responsibility in aiding the split of the space and defense accounting systems and moving the war weapons defense accounting to Norton AFB in San Bernardino. On March 4, 1963, Ike received the Air Force Commendation Medal for these efforts. He and his family now lived in San Bernardino, where he was in charge of the $30 billion ballistics accounting system. He was now a Tech Sergeant, overseeing three shifts of civil service employees. It was in San Bernardino on October 9, 1963 that his third daughter, Valencia Joy, was born.
On August 31, 1964, Ike retired from the U.S. Air Force. During his Air Force career, Ike earned fourteen medals, including service medals. He received several promotions during his years of service, from Aviation Cadet to Private to Private First Class (PFC), Corporal, Buck Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, and Tech Sergeant.
The family made Lexington, Texas their headquarters while Ike searched for his next career. The University of Houston offered Ike a position managing its data processing department. However, the position was not available for several months. In the meantime, his brother Sterling Baker, the Chief of Security at U of H, needed an assistant chief. Sterling offered Ike the job. So Ike moved his family to Houston, where they settled in the neighborhood of Timbergrove, close to Lorna’s sister and brother-in-law, Ella and Alton Behrend. When U of H was finally ready for Ike to fill the data processing management position, he turned it down, preferring the work policing the campus.
A year or so later, Rice University was ready to start its own security force, so hired Ike away from U of H for the job. This was the 1960s, a time of campus unrest, so the private universities got permission from the Texas Legislature to start police departments. Ike and his men at Rice attended classes to become police officers. Ike was thus the first police chief at Rice University and, over the course of 23 years, built the department into a well-respected and efficient organization of seventeen police officers and eight staff members. Besides his contributions to the university, he was quite active in the police profession. Ike was one of the founders of the Texas and New Mexico Association of College and University Police Departments, as well as serving as president of that organization in 1969. He and his family enjoyed many years of annual conferences throughout the Southwest and British Columbia. Ike also served during the 1987-88 fiscal year as President of the Texas College and University Police Officers Association.
Ike experienced many incidents and adventures, both serious and amusing, during his years as the Rice Chief of Police. In the early 70’s, after a legendary football game in which the Rice Marching Owl Band (MOB) taunted A&M in the half-time show followed by a Rice victory, the angry Aggies held the MOB hostage. Ike was on his way home when he got the call on his car radio, so he dropped his family off then drove back to Rice to save the MOB. He directed Rice food service trucks to pull up to the band room and haul the students out, unbeknownst to the agitated Aggie crowd. The story lives on in Rice lore.
Ike enjoyed a life highlighted by weekends and vacations in Possum Holler and Lexington, Texas. He loved fishing, camping, traveling, working outdoors on his acreage, and sitting on the front porch. He was keenly interested in family history, and researched the Rhodes family back many generations. He was philosophical, nonjudgmental, steady, kind, and good-humored. He was a good man, a very good man, loved by many, inspired by even more.
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