Ray and Patricia Messamer celebrate golden anniversary

In June 1973, a young Patricia Bird casually mentioned to her boyfriend Ray that she might be interested in joining the Air Force once she finished high school. He simply responded, “If you do that, you’ll miss your own wedding.”

She did not miss that wedding. On June 8, 1974, Ray and Patricia Messamer were married in a meadow near North Cottonwood Creek, Colorado. Surrounded by friends and loved ones, they exchanged vows and prepared to begin their life together. They were ushered from the ceremony by the arrival of a surprise June snowstorm -- nature’s type of wedding confetti. Three days later, they moved to Lander, Wyoming. 

Wyoming would prove to be good for the Messamers. They started their family while in Lander, welcoming their first daughter, Rae Lynn, while Ray worked as a temporary fisheries biologist. After a short stay in Buena Vista, Colorado, where daughter Colleen was born, Ray earned a permanent position with the Wyoming Game and Fish department. The family settled in Clark, welcoming son Kevin in 1978 and daughter Lisa in 1980. They moved to Lovell in 1988. Over the next several decades, they built a family legacy that currently encompasses four children, 16 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.                                         

Once Ray retired in May 2007, the Messamers served the Laguna San Pablo Mission in the Philippines for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (August 2009 to January 2011). Upon return, they booked their first cruise, to Hawaii, in celebration of their 30th anniversary. They have since taken cruises to Alaska, Hawaii and the Western Caribbean. Plans were being made for the Eastern Caribbean and Iceland. With friends and family spread across the West, they also stay busy driving to Washington, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Wyoming.

When they are home, they tend to their garden, work on taxidermy projects, collect family history and, of course, go fishing.

The Messamer children (and many grandchildren) gathered on June 29 to celebrate with them at a potluck reception at the cultural hall inside the Lovell Stake Center.