Former longtime Dryden employee loses battle with cancer.
The Dryden family lost an old and valued friend July 11 with the death of longtime employee Ed Sabo, who retired in 1985. Sabo, 80, died at the Hoffmann Hospice in Lancaster from complications related to cancer and chemotherapy treatment.
Services will be held as follows: wake/viewing from 4 to 7:30 p.m. July 14, with a rosary at 7:30, at Halley-Olson Funeral Chapel, 44802 N. Date St., Lancaster, (661) 942-1139. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. July 15 at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 45007 N. Cedar, Lancaster. Interment will follow at 11:30 a.m., Good Shepherd Catholic Cemetery, 43121 N. 70th St. West, Quartz Hill.
During his nearly 25-year career as a mechanic and crew chief at Dryden, Ed Sabo worked on some of the Center's highest-profile projects. He began his aerospace career during high school, attending the Manhattan High School of Aviation Trades from 1939 to 1942 in New York. From 1942 to 1948, he was employed at Republic Aviation Corp., Farmingdale, N.Y., where his work building aircraft supported the war effort. He transferred in 1949 to the Republic facility at Edwards Air Force base.
While at Edwards - where Sabo's son Bill, of Dryden's instrumentation and fabrication branch, recalled that his dad's pay was $3.21 per hour, with a 34-cent-per hour bonus for any night-shift work - the elder Sabo held several posts, coming to Dryden in 1961. During his tenure at the Center, he specialized in rocket maintenance on the XF-91 and F-84F aircraft. A highlight of his career was his work as crew chief on both the X-15 and HIMAT programs. He retired as deputy chief of maintenance.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in Sabo's memory be made to the Hoffmann Hospice, 1832 W. Avenue K, Ste. D-1, Lancaster, Ca., 93534, (661) 948-8801.
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