He was a longtime private pilot and a director of the National Rifle Association.
“He had a raucous laugh, an even greater sense of humor, and, even greater than that, a spirit of adventure and a disdain for (B.S),” David Bond, a journalist and former Spokesman-Review columnist, wrote in a farewell tribute. “He had a pilot’s heart and a disdain for common thinking.”
In 1968, Bond was recruited to run against Democrat Tom Foley, who was finishing his second term as Eastern Washington’s congressman. It was a close race, and a contentious one, David Bond recalled, but afterward Foley nominated one of Dick’s other sons, Marc, to the Air Force Academy. Six years later, he won a state House of Representatives seat in Spokane’s 6th Legislative District, which at the time consisted primarily of the South Hill and was among the state’s most reliably Republican.
In Olympia, Bond quickly established a reputation as a strong fiscal conservative, which in 1982 led to a well-publicized clash with Republican Gov. John Spellman, who was struggling to balance the state budget in the midst of a recession. Republicans had captured the Legislature and the governor’s mansion in 1980 on a no-new-taxes platform, and the House GOP proposed a budget with deep cuts to programs. Spellman said that would decimate public schools and universities.
The budget was so bad, Spellman said at a press conference to call for a special session, that it seemed like something a group of troglodytes had drafted. Bond had drafted a letter signed by two dozen Republicans calling for the all-cuts budget, and when reporters asked him about the governor’s characterization, he responded: “I didn’t know he knew big words like that.” He became the head troglodyte, was widely quoted and even featured in editorial cartoons.