Dale Ride; Father of First U.S. Woman Astronaut

Dale B. Ride, a trustee of California State University and the father of America’s first woman astronaut, has died from an apparent embolism. He was 67.

Ride died at 1 a.m. Saturday after prostate surgery in Santa Monica Hospital. An autopsy was scheduled.

After obtaining his doctorate in education from UCLA, Ride spent his four-decade career at Santa Monica Community College. He first taught political science and later served as assistant to the superintendent, which included lobbying in the state Capitol.

In 1984, Gov. George Deukmejian appointed the Republican educator to the Board of Trustees of California State University.

Ride was elected chairman of the board in May, 1986, and reelected in May, 1987.

His daughter, Sally, became America’s first woman to fly in space when she participated in a six-day mission on the space shuttle Challenger in June, 1983.

Ride and his wife, Joyce, flew to Florida to watch the Challenger launch and waited there for the landing, only to have the shuttle routed to Edwards Air Force Base in California.

“We live only a hundred miles from the (California) runway. We could have stayed home,” said the disappointed father, who lived in Encino.

Shortly after her spaceflight, Sally Ride was asked at a Sacramento appearance if she got her brains from her father.

“I must have,” she joked, “because my mother still has hers.”

Ride is survived by his wife; his daughter Sally, who in recent years has been studying arms control at Stanford University, and another daughter, Karen Scott, a Presbyterian minister, of Claremont.

A public memorial service has been scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at Encino Presbyterian Church. Graveside services will be private.