Memorial service Saturday honors longtime Murietan 'Cec' Bryant

Friends are invited to attend a memorial honoring long-time resident Clyde "Cec" Bryant Saturday at the Villas Clubhouse on Murieta Parkway from 1 to 3 p.m. Mr. Bryant died Dec. 17 after a year-long struggle with pancreatic cancer. He was 88.

Friends remembered Mr. Bryant as an unassuming and friendly man who loved golf and the champion Norwich Terriers he raised with Jean, his wife of 38 years.     

Cec and Jean Bryant moved to Rancho Murieta in 1982, two years after Mr. Bryant retired from a career as an airlines pilot. He flew for American Airlines, Capitol Airways, and the Flying Tigers. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was chief pilot for Seaboard World Airlines and was based in Zurich, Switzerland.

It was a long way from the family farm near Cedar City, Utah, where Clyde Walker Bryant was born July 8, 1920. He grew up with his three brothers and two sisters, and when they attended Mid-Valley School a few miles from their home, the children rode horses.

After graduating from a high school located on the campus of Branch Agricultural College in Cedar City, Mr. Bryant attended the college and earned a degree in civil engineering. During
his sophomore year, he took flying lessons and received his pilot's license.

His first year out of college, Mr. Bryant worked on a road survey crew for the state of Utah, and then at a gypsum mine. He applied to the Army Air Force, and his mother drove up to the mine with the news that he'd been accepted.  It was 1941, and the country was about to enter World War II.

Mr. Bryant was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Force, and flew military transport aircraft during the war. He flew C-54s to the Pacific, and B-25, B-24, B-17, P-38 and P-51 aircraft, delivering planes to Australia, Alaska, India, and Africa. He was awarded the Air Metal for "meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight against the enemy."  

He later flew civilian aircraft in support of the country's Korean and Vietnam war efforts.

Another civilian assignment involved flying monkeys from India to support the newly established Salk vaccine program.

By the time he retired in 1980, Mr. Bryant had piloted everything from propeller-powered 1940s aircraft to the jet-powered 747.

Mr. Bryant married his first wife, Beverly Blagg, in 1948. He is survived by their children, Cindy, Jan, and Curtis, grandchildren Jason and Ami, and a sister, Janniel Straton of Utah.

In 1970, Mr. Bryant married Jean Cunningham. They lived in Connecticut until 1980, when they moved to Sacramento, Jean's hometown.  

In 1982, when they settled in Rancho Murieta, it was a new development with few residents. "We've seen a tremendous amount of change and growth since we've been here," said Jean Bryant.

It wasn't the airport that attracted her husband to the community, since flying small planes didn't appeal to him, she said. It was golf. He polished his game and even achieved a hole-in-one during his years here.

The couple also raised championship Norwich Terrier dogs, including her husband's favorite best-in-show terrier, Champion Fairways Cat-In-The-Hat, who's now retired.