Hulbert Frederick “Rick” Weitzel, Jr., of Dripping Springs, son of the late Hulbert Frederick Weitzel, Sr., and late Clara Lois Robertson Weitzel, was born on February 14, 1923, in El Campo, Texas. He graduated salutatorian of Crescent High School, Wharton, Texas, at the age of 16, and went on to attend Schreiner College, The University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Houston, earning his Associate in Arts, Bachelor of Business Administration, and Master of Business Administration. He was a member of the First Baptist Church in Dripping Springs, and lent his carpentry and construction skills to help build the then-new church sanctuary between 1978 and 1981.
Colonel Weitzel was nearing the end of the fall 1941 semester at The University of Texas and looking forward to the upcoming baseball season and competition for a spot in the pitching rotation when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He joined the United States Army on the following day and headed off to basic training and flight school on December 19, 1941. During World War II, he flew fighter sorties and bombing runs over Europe, then fighter sorties over Africa and the Middle East, and finally over the Pacific. In 1946 he left the Army Air Corps to return to college.
After graduation, Colonel Weitzel longed for the skies and flight and returned to the military, this time as a member of the newly-formed United States Air Force, seeing action again as a fighter pilot in the Korean War. Between the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Colonel Weitzel qualified to fly, and logged time in, every type of aircraft utilized by the Air Force except the SR-71 Blackbird, though he logged time testing its predecessor, the YF-12. In that same time, he also taught Aerospace Science at Texas A&M University for four year years. Colonel Weitzel would later be in the running to join the space program, but war took him halfway around the world again.
