One day J.B. Mize Jr. helped a woman change a flat tire who offered to pay him for his kind deed. He wouldn't hear of it, but asked a favor.
"Just fly Delta," he told her.
Then there was the time snow closed Highway 5. The Fulton County native left his truck in a drugstore parking lot.
"He walked three miles to get home, changed clothes, then walked three miles back to get the truck and get to work," said Christine "Chris" Mize, his wife of 47 years. "He was dedicated to Delta."
Mr. Mize earned a nickname in a decades-long career with the airline, one in which he helped set up hubs across Europe and Asia:
"Mr. Delta."
"Delta came first," said Al Belote of Marietta, a retired technical operations foreman who, for 20 years, worked off and on with Mr. Mize. "He was a gung-ho Delta man. A lot of us were that way, but he was really faithful."
In 2009, Mr. Mize of Douglasville was diagnosed with leukemia, which he died from Thursday at Tranquility Hospice in Austell. He was 74. A funeral was held Monday in the chapel of Whitley-Garner at Rosehaven Funeral Home in Douglasville.
Mr. Mize's career with Delta Air Lines, Inc. spanned 35 years, a period in which he served as regional manager for the Pacific Region. He played a role in opening international hubs, and made home in whatever region of the globe he was assigned. He lived for three years each in Korea and Japan.
"He was the go-to guy whenever we had a station to open, the point man for arranging parts, facilities and contracts," said Lloyd Joiner of Jonesboro, a former Delta employee who oversaw international maintenance. "He opened every one of our European and Asian stations. He got the job done, but he was an unassuming person. He got the job done, and I got the credit."
While living abroad, Mr. Mize's work visa allowed him to visit home every six months. His children were adults with their own children during some of his tenure, said Kathy Scott, a daughter from Barnesville.
"He regretted that he didn't watch his grandchildren grow up, that's the one thing he really did miss," she said. "He didn't get to see their baby years, but he loved Delta and we all understood."
This Navy veteran retired in the mid-1990s, though not entirely. He served as a consultant for Delta and other airlines, including ValuJet after one of its planes crashed in 1996 in the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 aboard. He also was a consultant for World Airways Inc.
While Mr. Mize was known as Mr. Delta, another nickname was just as apropos: "Mr. Tomatoes."
"He grew the best tomatoes in the world," his daughter said. "We would meet almost weekly in Fairburn so he could give me my load of tomatoes for the week. I don't know what he did, but they were the best."
Additional survivors include another daughter, Niki Hay of Douglasville; two sons, Andy DeLong and Robby Delong, both of Douglasville; eight grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
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