Hutchinson, Kansas man who waved and smiled, counting over 1 million honks, dies
Whenever the Piersons went out for a meal around Hutchinson, it never failed that someone would come up to Dennis and ask if he was the man they had seen waving on 30th Avenue.
That was him. But the conversation never ended there with the gregarious man.
“If you took a survey, 90% of the people in Hutchinson knew who my brother was,” said his sister, Trudy Andersen. “And it’s all because of a wave and a smile. He was inspirational.”
Dennis Pierson, 70, died Tuesday. He was known to many as the “30th Avenue waver.”
Pierson always stayed upbeat despite what life threw at him: As a child, his family lived in their car in Carey Park before the children were adopted; doctors told him in his late 30s that he wouldn’t make it to 50 because of a blood disease that caused intense pain and led to both of his legs being amputated above the knee.
But Pierson was never a complainer.
Instead, Pierson parked his scooter out to the edge of his driveway, waved and smiled, and counted honks. He was on his third metal clicker, the other two wore out, en route to counting about 1,165,000 honks.
Most people may not have noticed the fine letters driving by, but Pierson always wore a hat poking fun at the lemons life gave him. He had many custom-made, orange embroidered hats, including ones that said “defeeted but not defeated” and “stop pulling my legs, seriously, they come off.”
The wave and smile had a profound impact on people.
“My kids are going to be devastated,” Keri Lamagna wrote on Facebook in a post including his obituary. “We purposely would drive down to see him.”
People started sending him letters, lots of them, including Buhler students whose bus went by the house each day. In the letters, people mention all the joy his smile and wave brought them, how they eagerly looked forward to it each day.
Pierson’s friendliness caught on.
Before his surgeries, people would post on social media to try and get hoards of people to drive by in support of him.
Dennis Pierson had an even bigger impact on the people he met.
Many people stopped by to meet him or buy one of the items he would sell out front for family and friends.
Before retiring, Janet Carlile bussed Buhler’s elementary and middle schoolers by Dennis Pierson’s home each day. She always had them wave.
She worked up the nerve to stop by on her way home on a Wednesday. That Friday, the Piersons were having dinner with Carlile and her husband, Cy.
“It was just boom, boom when we got to be close,” she said. “And then it just developed into a family-like relationship … we couldn’t be much closer.”
When asked if they see each other at least once a week, Cy Carlile laughed, adding it was at least a few times a week. They often shared meals together and lived close enough that Dennis Pierson was regularly at their house, swimming or fishing in their pond.
“It is family,” Carlile said.
Steve Peeples, owner of Peeples Orthotics and Prosthetics in Wichita, said staff always looked forward to seeing Pierson since his first surgery in 2018.
“He was always in a good mood,” Peeples said. “I don’t think I ever saw him with the same hat on twice, making fun of having one foot, two feet in the grave (hats he had after losing one foot and then getting a second hat after losing another foot). He had a great sense of humor and unbelievable work ethic. He was just a really, really exceptional human.”
Pierson outworked some patients a third his age, Peeples said.
Their relationship grew.
Peeples often would have Pierson in for sessions he wouldn’t charge him for; he also once drove to Hutchinson to give him a prosthetic leg, but stayed and helped him install a rotating seat in his pickup.
Peeples will close most of his operations Wednesday so that he and staff can go to Pierson’s funeral.
”Dennis and Edith, they’re family to us,” he said. “I hate that he’s passed, but I love the idea that he is running around and not dealing with that stuff anymore.”
At the funeral, Trudy Andersen plans to talk on behalf of the family about who her little brother was.
Always a comedian
Andersen and her two brothers, the late Bill Pierson and Dennis Pierson, lived in the family car with their biological father. They mostly stayed in Carey Park.
Their father went to work at a salvage yard owned by the late Clyde Pierson and his brothers, who let their father bring the children to work each day.
Eventually, it became unsustainable, and their father asked Pierson and his wife, Maurine, who has now passed away, if they wanted to adopt his children. The Piersons had been trying unsuccessfully for years to have children. They took them in like they were their own children.
Dennis Pierson was the youngest at 2 with his brother a year older and sister a year above that.
The Piersons then went on to have two more daughters, the last being born when Maurine was around 40.
Dennis Pierson was always the family comedian.
“Even as a kid, he was just a funny kid,” said Trudy Andersen. “He wasn’t working at it, he just was. He just had a great attitude about everything, and it never left him. He just had a great attitude about everything, and it never left him.”
Pierson met Edith ‘Edie’ Obermite when they were teens at the skating rink. He graduated from Hutchinson High School in 1971 and the two married in a large ceremony the next year.
“He would not have survived and been able to live as long as he did” if it wasn’t for her, Andersen said. “She’s wonderful, so supportive, so caring.”
As a teen, Pierson also started a lifelong passion of riding and working on motorcycles.
He still had a custom three-wheel motorcycle that the Piersons would ride when weather permitted, often making rides to their favorite restaurant, including the now shuttered Sirloin Stockade.
On one Halloween, a waitress dressed up as Pierson. The two smiled as they took a photo together, with her wearing an orange hat, like he always did, a similar T-Shirt and jeans.
She also stuffed a pillow under her shirt, trying to get closer to Pierson’s belly size.
Trudy Andersen, her husband, Eric, a couple friends and the Piersons went to eat at Airport Steakhouse in Hutchinson a few months ago. A man at the table behind them touched Pierson on the shoulder, asking when he had his other leg removed and how he was doing.
Pierson soon showed him one of his favorite tricks. He made his prosthetic spin around a couple times and said, ‘I bet you can’t do that.’”
“That was my brother,” Andersen said. “He was a funny guy.”
She added: “He is the most inspirational person I have ever met.”
Health concerns
In his late 30s, Pierson was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis. Along with the complications from it and other health concerns, doctors didn’t think he would make it to 50.
“We always thought it was just his positive attitude, and just living life by the moment, living every day and just having a good outlook,” said Bob Obermite, Pierson’s brother-in-law. “He was inspirational. He was always fun to be around.”
Obermite knew Pierson 54 years, since he was 10, when Pierson started dating his older sister.
Pierson taught Obermite how to ride motorcycles, water ski, drive a boat and maintain it. Pierson was an avid skier before the health issues, Obermite said.
“I always said he was like the brother I didn’t have besides the two brothers I do have,” he said.
The thrombosis left Pierson with painful, open sores, but Pierson always put on a smile.
The multiple surgeries, which eventually led to both legs being amputated above the knees, did end up providing him a great deal of relief in his last couple of years, family said.
Pain or less pain, Pierson was known to live life to the fullest.
He was counting honks the day before he died.
Obermite said, while driving by the week before that, he looked over and saw Pierson fishing from his scooter at the Carliles.
“He was still living life,” Obermite said. “I don’t know how many people texted me (the day he died and said), ‘I just honked at him yesterday.”’
Counting honks
Pierson, before the surgeries, would sit on the back of his pickup and wait for his wife to come home. He would wave and smile at drivers, who would honk.
Curious about all the honks, Obermite’s wife, Shannon, gave Pierson his first counter. And so it started. The counter can only go to 9,999 before it resets, so Pierson would mark down the 10,000 every time he got there.
And with the hobby came a lot of letters.
“You bring our family JOY!,” Alexis Rhodenbaugh wrote. “Thank you for always spreading a smile and wave! Enjoy this beautiful mum, for your beautiful soul.”
One girl named Bailey started her letter with the salutation: “For the kind man.”
“Thank you for always waving, it always brightens my day!” she wrote. “It’s very sweet and the kind of kindness this world needs!”
Pierson told The Hutchinson News in 2019 that some letters brought him to tears.
In another letter, a person wrote they drive by almost daily on their commute, in eager anticipation to see if Pierson were outside.
“My day is less if I don’t see you, receive your smile and wave,” the person wrote, urging him to keep waving with the promise they would one day stop.
People often did stop and they would leave with a new friendship. Culinary students at Prairie Hills Middle School came with their teacher a couple times to bring Pierson food they cooked.
Sometimes, people would stop just to meet him, other times they would stop to look at one of the items he sold for friends, including vehicles, motorcycles and trailers.
“He shoulda been a car salesman,” said Janet Carlile. “I swear he could have sold snow to Eskimos.”
Whatever reason they did stop for, they were sure to get a smiling Pierson.
Edith Pierson said he told her the week before he died that he had around 1,165,000 honks. The clicker she found says 7,836, which she assumes is in addition to that number.
Many people have reached out to Edith Pierson and her family since Dennis Pierson passed, telling her about the impact he made.
“He would be really touched,” she said, starting to cry. “He doesn’t know how many lives he touched.”
