WAKARUSA, Ind. — A beautiful day presented itself at Eby Field as the sun gradually peaked down through the clouds on the legacy of one man’s dream.
A large gathering of family, friends, neighbors, businesses and farmers gathered on May 23 nearby in the airplane hanger of Agriflite Services to celebrate the life of David Eby, of Wakarusa.
A Celebration of Life Fly-in and Drive-in was offered, so everyone could share the memories of his legacy that Eby had offered to so many throughout his life and his community from Nov. 18, 1948 to April 16, 2025.
Eby was born in Elkhart to Elmer “Leonard” and Esther Marie (Miller) Eby. On Dec. 28, 1969, he married Denise (Erbaugh) Eby.
He and his surviving wife had three children: Ryan (Kristin) Eby, of Syracuse; Garrett (Keri) Eby, of Wakarusa; and Alisa Dodd and Adrian Dodd, of Mundelein, Illinois.
As a child, he grew up on a grain and livestock farm in the 1950s, and he also had a dream to be a pilot.
Once Eby graduated from Wakarusa High School in 1967, he would graduate again four years later from LeTourneau University in 1971 with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace and mechanical engineering; he was also thinking about joining the Air Force to be a pilot.
Unfortunately, he had fallen short of the vision requirements to join the Air Force, but that did not discourage Eby. His dream was to be a pilot.
Eby coined a quote that his son, Ryan, shared to all in attendance: “When you turn your dream into an occupation, work becomes a passion — that never feels like a job.”
He began his career as a flight instructor and in 1973 he started the family business with his wife known as Agriflite, with only one Cessna 188.
Over the years, Eby shared his love of flying with his children and his wife. They experienced soaring over Elkhart County, and beyond, as a family.
Eby was not only a husband, father, grandfather and the cofounder of Agriflite and Venture Aviation — he was also a follower of God.
He had a deep love for the Lord, and he lived a life of integrity as he had a vision to put God first, followed by his family and customers.
He was an inventor, an entrepreneur and a man who was willing to take risks and go the extra mile to help others in need.
As a family man, he was also proud to teach each of his children to fly a plane and mentor many other young pilots.
He lived a life of dreams and continued to build on the challenges he faced throughout his legacy in aviation and his own personal journey in life.
When others saw challenges, Eby saw opportunities. He taught the basic skills and lifelong lessons to encourage each of his children to fly at a young age, so they could fly safely to and from college.
A love for agriculture and aviation helped pave the road to his successes, as he reached 50 years in the crop-dusting business in 2023.
God played a role, not only his business, but in his life, too. His generous spirituality supported all of his children in all they did and provided emergency help when others needed a plane to reach the Mayo Clinic, hospital emergencies or even supplies for a missionary trip — he was always a phone call away.
In the 1990s, a Federal Aviation Administration inspector noticed some leaking on the runway from a crop duster, so Eby saw this as an opportunity to improve his spray system and began tinkering to develop the AeroFlow check valve to prevent this issue.
Through trial and error, he continued to improve the design, and eventually it was remedied and sold to agricultural entities all around the world to provide a leak-free spray system.
Before the days of modern technology, Agriflite would spend hours scanning off copies of highlighted fields from black-and-white plat books and using a typewriter to draw up pre-orders for their customers.
In 2006, Eby developed AgSync Inc., which was a computer software management program used to help create the modern approach to provide up-to-the-minute information for both the office and the pilot of each plane in the air crop dusting with the click of a button.
He started his crop-dusting business with a new Cessna 188 for $23,000 and continually added additional agriculture airplanes called air tractors to his fleet.
At one time, Agriflite was the home to nine air tractors, with the ability to cover over 1,000 acres on any given day while covering Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania.
In 1973, their primary applications were spraying fungicide and insecticide to crops for local farmers, but eventually cover crops became popular, too — right along with suppressing the mosquito populations in communities all around and eradicating the gypsy moth from the forests.
I have gotten to know Eby fairly well over the years as I have used Agriflite for many of my fungicide, insecticide and cover crops applications.
But in the last few years, he had really taken interest in wanting to learn more about the Indiana state corn-husking contest each fall.
He was always quick to pull up a chair in the office to see how he could help or ask what we had in store for the future of our organization.
In 2016, our state corn-husking site near Lakeville was overpopulated with massive swarms of mosquitoes following a 100-year flood event, with a 14 inches of rain during a two-week period of time, but Agriflite managed to tame down the mosquito population just in time for our contest.
As a kid growing up, and even now, when I hear the loud yellow crop-duster plane flying in a diagonal direction overhead from Wakarusa to nearby fields, pulling in and out through the acrobatics of aviation, I will always think of Eby of Agriflite.
And, lastly, in Eby’s words, his son, Ryan, repeated: “Always look ahead. Anticipate what is next. And if you are the best at whatever you do, there will always be a place for you.”
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