By Eric Killough
Freelance Reporter
Special to the Tribune
Terry Williamson is most widely known in Pratt as an entrepreneur with a varied portfolio including rental properties, a laundromat, storage facilities, TK Handyman Services, and car rentals. What most don’t know is that he is also an airplane pilot with a romantic side, and that romanticism recently found Williamson making local, national, and international news.
Taylor Burcham hails from Montana and has been in Pratt for nearly 11 years. She and Terry Williamson have been dating for the last two years. If anybody is a match for Williamson, it’s her.
“I wear many different hats. I manage a few rental properties that are owned by other people, I also take care of the landscaping for several people in town including helping with the landscaping at the Vernon Filley Art Museum, and after three years of working there have taken over as the manager of N’Cahoots on Main Street,” Burcham said. “Additionally, I am a member of the Master Gardeners Club here in town where I’m involved in maintaining the planters along Main Street, the pollinator garden at the Fish and Game building and things like that. I’ve also helped with Toys for Tots and am qualified as a home health aide, assisting older people in the community with in-home health needs. I make sure that these people can get their home maintenance needs taken care of or get them to the doctor if they need to. I try to help in any way I can to make their lives easier, especially if they don’t have family nearby.”
The romance of Williamson and Burcham has been plastered across social media, with People Magazine, Fox News, and outlets from the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand reaching out to the couple for a story after a flight pattern proposal of marriage hit the news waves.
“This story sort of went viral because it’s some light in the darkness. It’s sort of a happy story that shows no matter where someone is in life they can find happiness,” Burcham said. “It’s not political, it’s not bad news. Everybody wants to hear a heartwarming story.”
Burcham and Williamson met through their work with Burcham managing properties and Williamson owning a handyman service.
“We have known each other since 2019 but we didn’t start dating until about two years ago. I had hired Terry to do some handyman work on a rental I manage in town,” she said. “It didn’t take too long for us to realize we had a lot of similar interests and wanted to do things together that helped other people. From there it evolved into dating. Terry is a very caring and compassionate person and is also very hard-working. Those things were pretty important to me.”
What brought Williamson and Burcham into the recent media spotlight was a Beechcraft Bonanza P35 V Tail airplane and a flight pattern spelling out “Will you marry me Taylor.” Burcham shared the crux of the story.
“There’s a program called ForeFlight where you can map out your flight path and there is a sketchpad that you can draw on and map out a route,” she said. “That’s how he mapped the wording he was going to fly. People have done this before but in true Terry-fashion it was all or nothing. He did five words where most people do two or just do a heart or something like that. He did five words of full cursive and wrote out ‘Will you marry me Taylor’. I had no idea he was going to do this; it was a surprise the whole time. I was very proud, as aviation has played a huge part in our relationship, and I know what it took to pull off such a thing.”
Williamson had landed and hangered his plane before Burcham had seen his sky written message due to her being at work and not able to follow the flight as closely as she normally would have. Burcham’s first reaction was to say jokingly, “What is this? What is this flight path?” He then presented a ring to Burcham which she stated emphatically “had better not be too expensive.”
Burcham said her immediate response to his question was a definitive ‘yes’.
“The only person that knew this was going to happen was Robert Ellis who Terry had informed of his flight pattern as a matter of safety,” she said. “But once the word was out my friends loved it and thought it was great. There’s always been this kind of question of whether it was going to happen? When was it going to happen? They were always wondering because since the beginning we’ve never been in a hurry. We’ve just been living our lives, doing our thing, and seeing where it takes us.”
When not laying his heart out in the clouds, Burcham said Williamson uses his flying skills and airplane for at least two very special charitable endeavors, one of which is the Young Eagles program. Since its launch in 1992, the Young Eagles program has been offering youth ages 8 to 17 their very first flight experience at absolutely no cost to the participant. Through its dedicated partners more than 2.5 million young people have taken to the skies. This past spring break Williamson took to the skies to bring a “first flight” experience to nine local youth. Burcham said she has joined the effort assisting with registrations and helping the kids with understanding the adventure they are about to undertake.
“Last year on Labor Day in Haviland we pulled 200 people to the Haviland air strip and flew 23 kids in a little 2-seater Cessna 150. Haviland is a little grass strip, and a lot of pilots don’t want to land on a strip like that. But we don’t care, and we stay until every kid has had a flight,” she said.
Burcham said the couple also rescues dogs together.
“We pick up the dogs and fly them to where they’ve already been adopted, or they go from an overcrowded shelter to a shelter where they have a better quality of life,” she said. “The flights are set up through ‘Pilots N Paws’ which might mean flying to Texas to pick up a dog, flying the dog to Wichita, and then flying home. Where the dogs are going to go is arranged through Pilots N Paws.”
Williamson and Burcham have a long-term vision for community involvement which includes bringing in more services to Pratt, and not just business. Their vision includes increased events and resources which they both count as very important to their work. Specifically, they would like to see more events at the Pratt Regional Airport which could include fly-in events and car shows. They have a particular interest in bringing people together that otherwise might not have been connected.
Though a wedding date has not been set, Burcham is assured Williamson will want an aviation themed wedding.
”Terry says he wants a small wedding, but I have always said that ‘Terry can’t do anything small,’ hence the proposal,” Burcham said.
