David Cheek, Class of 1963
Posted Mar 25, 2021
David Cheek ’63 died March 17, 2021. He was born to Fred ‘33 and Mary Sue ’35 Cheek on Aug. 2, 1941 in Ohio but was raised in Dearborn, Trenton, and St. Clair Shores, MI. Dave attended Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio and graduated with a degree in Economics. He was involved in the Pi Beta Sigma (Pi Sig) fraternity, ‘O’ Club and played baseball.
Dave met wife Carol Schweitzer ‘64 at Otterbein in her first class as a freshman. He “courted” her by bringing her a donut each day to their 7:45 a.m. class. She nicknamed him “donut boy”.
Dave went on to get an MBA at University of Michigan. He was hired by Dow where he started in the Detroit office, living in Northville, and later moving to Midland as Director of Sales of Polyethylene Resins.
Dave always loved baseball and was a devoted Tiger fan (and Ohio State fan) and coached the Northeast Little League in his early years.
He retired from Dow in 1994 and did several consulting jobs including assisting the polyethylene group during the merger of Union Carbide and Dow Chemical.
Later he started driving for Senior Services, served meals at the Open Door, ushered with Carol at Center for the Arts, and ushered for Midland Evangelical Free Church. He loved playing golf with family and friends at the Midland Country Club. Over the years he enjoyed playing many U.S. Open courses and won the Super Senior tournament at MCC several times. He also enjoyed fishing, gardening, cooking, reading, watching sports, skiing and tennis in his younger years and participated in several different bible studies.
Dave is survived by his wife Carol, his three children, Michael (Wendy) Cheek, Jeff Cheek and Laura (Daniel) Mitchell. He is survived by his nine grandchildren: Camden (Bekah), Kaedyn, Callie, Caleb, Soleil, Grayson, Ava, Ella and Lilah.
Also surviving is his sister Jeanie ’68 (Steve) Lumley, two brothers-in-law, Alan (Caryn) Schweitzer and David (Vicki) Schweitzer and many loving nieces and nephews.