Decorated Vietnam War pilot Huisenfeldt dies

Lee Scrivner

Wednesday, July 19, 2000 | 9:56 a.m.

Steve Huisenfeldt lived his life with military precision. Even the smallest details could not escape his organizing eye.

"When he would help me with paperwork, he would explain everything thoroughly, step-by-step. If I put any papers out of order, he would get seriously stressed," Huisenfeldt's daughter, Tanya Tumminia, recalled.

"I tried to put a woman's touch on the decoration of his house," Huisenfeldt's girlfriend, Jody Brown, said. "I bought these little figurines and placed them at an angle on his counter.

"At every opportunity he would straighten them."

Stephen Gerald Huisenfeldt, whose military training may have demanded the slouching figurines come to attention, died of a heart attack Saturday morning at his home in Green Valley. He was 67.

"He was very dedicated, very decorated," said retired Air Force Col. Chuck Van Driel, a longtime friend.

But Steve Huisenfeldt's nature was more than just stern rigidity. As much as he called things to attention, "he called attention to things that are overlooked by most people in day-to-day life," his daughter recalled.

"For instance, he put his meticulousness to work just last month at my wedding," she said. "That's just how he was. He planned and provided for everything, and I think it was seriously the happiest day of his life."

He was born March 22, 1933, in Green Bay, Wis., the son of Steve Huisenfeldt and Alice Baumgart.

Huisenfeldt served in the Air Force for more than 20 years. As a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross "for aerial heroism in Southeast Asia."

He later became a lieutenant colonel and a member of the elite "River Rats" flight group.

"Steve flew over 100 missions over North Vietnam for the 474th Squadron," Van Driel said. "I don't know anyone else who has done that."

This military man, though, was most meticulous about making sure those nearest to him were smiling.

"We went to visit his daughter at college in Arizona, and we stopped at a restaurant for some breakfast," Brown recalled. "I got up to go to the bathroom, knowing full well he would get up and pretend to leave without me.

" 'I was just going to drive down the road a bit to see what your reaction would be,' he would say.

"Sometimes we would laugh so hard at restaurants, I thought they would call the guys with the white lab coats to come take us away."

His daughter recalled similar antics.

"He grew up on the farm, so he could do all of these hilarious things," she said. "He'd sit on the handlebars of a bike and ride it backwards; he could do that till his dying day."

"He would make my heart smile," Brown said.

After Huisenfeldt retired from the Air Force in 1973, he received his real estate license and founded Sunset Realty, which he owned for more than 20 years.

He taught his children to patiently finish what they start.

"Once I was cleaning the house, and a particular spot wouldn't come out," his daughter recalled. "I was ready to give up. But then Dad came in and said, 'You need to slow down. Spend more time on it. You will eventually accomplish it. Always finish something that you start.'

"He was outstanding both in serving his country and in his business because he never left anything pending," she said.

In addition to his daughter, Tanya, Huisenfeldt is survived by a son, Stephen Huisenfeldt Jr. of Las Vegas; a brother, Bob Huisenfeldt, and a sister, Mary Ellen Kubsch, both of Green Bay, Wis.

Another daughter, Yvette, died in a skiing accident in 1991.

Memorial services will be held 11 a.m. Thursday at Christ the King Catholic Church, 4925 S. Torrey Pines Drive. Burial will follow at Palm Mortuary, 7600 S. Eastern Ave.

The family requests that donations be made to a favorite charity.