In Memory
Daniel LeRoy Swihart
March 22, 1943 - July 11, 2023
With heavy hearts we announce the end of an eighteen-year battle with prostate cancer for Dan Swihart, better known as Swi, Coach, The Professor, Uncle Dan, Dadiel, and Grandpa.
Dan was born in South Bend, Indiana, where he chewed tar, ate neighbors’ radishes straight from the garden, and snuck out of his window to “borrow” his dad’s scooter at the age of 15. Dan swam and ran cross country for James Whitcomb Riley High School, and continued on to the swim team at Ball State University, where he graduated with a BS in education.
Dan was hired to Garden Grove School District in California by the same recruiters who hired a recent Otterbein College graduate named Arlene Buckley. Dan and Arlene met at a church campout in California in 1965—he was the oddball in a black leather jacket sleeping in an army surplus hammock—and were married December 28, 1966 in Belpre, Ohio.
While living in California, Dan obtained his private pilot’s license, and began teaching ground school at Torbet Aviation. He flew many trips across the country in his Piper Cub.
Dan received his master’s degree in biology education from Miami University, while living in married student housing with his wife and newborn daughter, Katie.
Dan taught high school biology and zoology for Garden Grove Unified, Fairfield, Forest Park, and Winton Woods, and throughout his career coached water polo, wrestling, track, and—his great love—cross country. He touched many lives as a teacher, coach, and mentor, taking annual field trips to the Cincinnati Zoo, hosting campouts and cookouts for his cross-country kids, and chauffeuring while they practiced “van surfing” in the back of the Swi-Mobile team van. Numerous former students have credited Dan’s teaching and coaching for inspiring them to become veterinarians, nurses, and coaches themselves.
Even after retirement, Dan never stopped teaching, whether it was to his three grandsons while canoeing on the Little Miami river, a carload of nieces and nephews stopping on the road to rescue a turtle, or a youth group on trips to the Minnesota boundary waters or to build outhouses in Nicaragua.
Dan remained a life-long athlete, running, swimming, bicycling, off-road dirt biking, and scuba diving. He was a coach that always ran with his kids, and individually competed in many races, including two triathlons and a marathon. He was a grandpa that showed up for every T-ball, baseball, and soccer game, every swim, track, and cross country meet. He made it to his youngest grandson’s wrestling matches in a wheelchair even in the final months of his life.
Dan was a prankster, a joke teller, an infamous storyteller, a collector of limericks, a Civil War history buff. He was world’s loudest sneezer, an “Ooga Horn” blower, a builder and fixer of things, an innate navigator, an avid reader, an adventurer at heart. He spent the summers off from school tent camping and traveling back roads on one of his stable of motorcycles. He was never without a questionable hat, a ratty t-shirt, a pocket knife (used for both peeling oranges and trimming nails), a handkerchief, and at least one harmonica.
Dan had a passion for music of all kinds, from classical, jazz, and opera, to Don Williams, Tony Rice, and old-timey gospel. He sang in the Southern Gateway barbershop chorus, and in the John Wesley church choir, and played his guitar around the campfire and on the front porch on summer evenings. Birthdays couldn’t be celebrated without Dan’s harmonica accompaniment; he played harmonica in churches, stairwells, lobbies, the Sistine Chapel, and with the band at an Irish pub (and was even invited to do so once or twice!).
Dan and Arlene traveled extensively, from motorcycle trips on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia and yearly snow birding to their cottage in Grove City, Florida; to Jamaica, St. John, a sailboat cruise of the Caribbean, and tours of Ireland and Italy. Dan also enjoyed many adventures dirt biking in Colorado and Baja, Mexico.
Dan is preceded by his daughter, Katie Edwards, and his parents Owen and Lorraine (Burden) Swihart. He is survived by his brother David (JoAnn) Swihart, his beloved wife of 56 years, Arlene Swihart of South Lebanon, Ohio; and their daughter and son-in-law Jenny and Mike Long; Katie’s partner John DiVenere; and his grandsons, Jordan Edwards and Ben and Gabe Long. He will be fondly remembered with many off-color stories by his brothers- and sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews, friends, teaching colleagues, Mountain Man buddies, and former students.
Arlene and Jenny will be spreading Dan’s ashes in two of his favorite places: the gulf coast of Florida and along the Blue Ridge Parkway. A Celebration of Life will be announced later this summer.
6/17/2024 djb
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