Steven Keith Wilson

Born in Atlanta in 1944 and raised in Sparta, New Jersey, Steve was flying planes before he was old enough to drive. While earning his pilot’s license, he was also a standout high school athlete who briefly became an Oklahoma Sooner after walking on to the football team. He left college early to care for his younger brother—a decision that said more about him than any stat line ever could.

He was drafted into the Army and deployed to Korea. After his service, he earned his commercial pilot’s license and joined Eastern Airlines, launching a career in the cockpit during the last great era of commercial aviation. So of course he married a flight attendant. Her name was Bonnie and she liked small dogs and expensive things, the latter of which led to the union’s quick demise.

Fort Lauderdale in the ’70s was an excellent place to be a young pilot, and Steve embraced the opportunities bachelorhood afforded him. But everything changed when the woman next door—Diane (Blackford) Bishop, a mother of two—caught his attention. He married her on Feb. 11, 1978, becoming a father to Ronald and Karen. A transfer to Eastern Shuttle in Boston soon followed, and the family moved to New Hampshire, where daughters Pamela and Stephanie arrived in quick succession.

Once settled, Steve began collecting hobbies the way some people collect airport souvenirs. He raised pigs and sheep. He planted a Christmas tree farm. He hunted, built things, fixed things, and photographed things. But the real obsession was hot air ballooning. He named his balloon Ring Around the Rainbow and became a fixture in the southern New Hampshire ballooning scene, which was more robust—and more eccentric—than outsiders might imagine.

When he felt himself drifting from passion into routine, he pivoted to something new. That was his way: learn it, do it well, move on.

After Eastern Airlines collapsed, Steve stayed with the Shuttle. When USAir took over, Captain Wilson became chief pilot and director of operations, and for a while also head crew scheduler until federal regulators suggested that no single man should run an entire airline by force of will. Steve did it anyway, at least long enough to prove his point.

He lived in New Hampshire but worked out of New York, commuting 255 miles each way every day. He’d leave before dawn, drive to Logan, fly to LaGuardia, put in a full day, and still make it back in time for his daughters’ basketball games. It was absurd; he did it anyway. Because that’s what good men do: they show up. Steve always showed up.

After retiring from USAirways in 2004, Steve sought a place where he could keep flying and found it in Tarpine, a fly-in community in Panacea. Steve spent five years building a small plane in his hangar before a rough landing on a grass strip convinced him he preferred the feel of a 727, so he sold the plane and bought a Class A motorcoach instead.

“I used to fly high,” he’d say. “Now I go low and slow.”

He and Diane embraced RV life until her death in 2015. In the years that followed, pickleball became his way to connection. He founded a local league at the Wakulla Community Center and built a community around the game. It was through pickleball that he met Pat Ochoa, a woman with a passion for witty banter to match Steve’s penchant for adventure. They shared stories, laughter, and love for the last seven years.

When pickleball games paused during the pandemic, Nicole Barodte arrived in his life, charged by his daughter and caregiver Pam with motivating “a grumpy old man to move.” She brought joy, energy, and laughter to his home, making the old man forget to be grumpy when she was around. The family is forever grateful to her for her gracious, genuine companionship.

Steve is survived by his children—Ronald Bishop II, Karen Bishop, Pamela Wilson, and Stephanie Wilson—and by grandchildren and great-grandchildren who knew him more as a legend than a cuddly grandpa. He wasn’t the demonstrative type; his love language was showing up, solving problems, and teaching you how to solve them as well. He always led by example. And he always cried at sappy commercials.

He is also survived by Shadow, the fluffy little dog he adored almost as much as his Dewar’s.

Fly free, Captain Wilson. Thank you for the lift.