RALPH WILSON/Sun-Gazette Correspondent Former Vice President Dick Cheney greets supporters at the Williamsport Regional Airport during a stop in 2004.

From attending a game during the Little League World Series, to casting a fly rod into trout-filled Pine Creek, to rousing up GOP supporters of President George W. Bush in a re-election campaign rally at the Williamsport Regional Airport, Dick Cheney left his mark and footprint in Lycoming County.

Former Vice President Cheney, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 84, used his wry sense of humor and no-nonsense delivery to energize those who got to be close to him, according to those he met.

After a campaign stop at Bloomsburg University in August, 2004, Cheney made an impromptu visit to see his home state of Texas play a night game at Howard J. Lamade Stadium during the Little League World Series.

He was on a campaign to help to secure the re-election of Bush-Cheney ticket that November. He attended the Little League World Series to watch the Lamar National Little League from Texas play a night game at Lamade Stadium.

Cheney and his entourage wanted to enjoy a series’ game as fans and the organization arranged it so he and his family could sit on blankets and plastic chairs on Little League Hill, beyond the centerfield fence.

Members of the league’s communications staff were shoulder-to-shoulder with the Secret Service, according to an archived account of the visit.

Cheney and his family watched three innings from their location on the lower hill.

Outdoorsman

On any given day, Cheney could be seen in either his button-down business suits surrounded by the president and his cabinet, or, when he was off-duty or vacationing wearing a floppy fisherman’s hat and vest pinned with various flies and hooks.

Indeed, he was an outdoors enthusiast. He met fishing guide and ranger, Don Daughenbaugh, while he was a congressman in Wyoming, according to writer Linda Roller’s account in a story in 2022 in Mountain Home.

Cheney visited Pine Creek — also fished by former late President Jimmy Carter — according to Roller, who interviewed Daughenbaugh at his home in Oak Knolls in Lycoming County.

Campaign rally

Most notably, though, Cheney’s visit to Williamsport Regional Airport on the evening of Friday, Oct. 29, at the DeGol Jet Center hangar, brought the largest crowd – estimated to be 3,100 people crammed inside the hangar, with those unable to get inside listening outside it.

The rally was in support of the re-election of President Bush and to secure electoral votes in this critical swing state of Pennsylvania.

Steven W. Cappelli, who serves today as borough manager of South Williamsport and its public safety director, was then the member of the state House of Representatives for the 83rd District when Cheney flew into the airport in Montoursville for the campaign rally.

U.S. Rep. John Peterson, R-Pleasantville, introduced Cheney. The hangar had limited space, with the gate recording 3,100 people, but some people could not get inside.

“As part of the welcoming delegation, I was one of the first to greet him as he exited his plane and entered the hangar,” Cappelli recalled. “I recall him smaller in physical stature than he appeared on television,” he said.

“He was most cordial and clearly confident on the Bush-Cheney re-election,” Cappelli remarked.

His speech to the crowd was patriotic and centered on the then-ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“His legacy will largely be remembered for being the architect of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) and the American blood and treasure that was sacrificed to that end,” Cappelli noted.

In that speech, too, Cheney discussed the top presidential challenger, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts – touching on Kerry’s voting record on the War on Terror and told GOP supporters that the state and the nation would be better off if Bush “is reelected Tuesday,” according to a Sun-Gazette story by journalist Kevin Olmstead.

“Today, people in Pennsylvania and all across the land can be confident of a better future, a stronger economy and a more secure nation because of the leadership of our president, George W. Bush,” Cheney said to applause.

He went on to demonstrate the character over the past four years of the president. “He’s a man of loyalty and kindness who speaks plainly and means what he says,” Cheney remarked.

In contrast, Cheney described Kerry as a “man who will say and do anything if he thinks it will advance his cause.”

Cheney reminded those gathered how Kerry voted in favor of using force against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, then voted against funding the purchase of body armor, ammunition and other materials for troops.

Cheney blamed Kerry’s actions on Howard Dean, an anti-war candidate who was surging ahead in the polls.

Cheney referred to Kerry’s statement in his first presidential debate with Bush that any U.S. military action should pass a “global test” of approval from other nations.

“The president and I know better than that,” Cheney said at the rally. “We know that it is not our job to conduct international opinion polls. Our job is to defend America.”

Cheney discussed how the administration was focused on the black-market network that supplied nuclear weapons technology to Libya, as well as to Iran and North Korea.

Cheney remarked how the administration succeeded on the homefront in stimulating the economy despite inheriting a recession and enduring the fallout of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“Every American who pays federal income taxes benefitted from the Bush tax cuts and so has the economy,” Cheney said.

He interspersed his speech with his dry sense of humor and at one point referred to the new camouflage jacket Kerry wore while hunting as the senator’s “October disguise.”

Former Montoursville Mayor John Dorin said he saw a side of Cheney he hadn’t seen before.

“When I heard him speak at different locations, he didn’t have that amount of humor in his speech,” Dorin said to the Sun-Gazette in 2004.