W. Paul Thayer, a former student who was one of the first pilots to break the sound barrier and use the ejection seat, died May 6 at the age of 90. Thayer was a regular donor to U. Kansas and presented for the University’s commencement exercises in 1979. He was also honored with the Alumni Association’s highest award, the Citation for Distinguished Services.

He was honored by the University for having two separate careers in aviation — “in the cockpit and in the corporate suite,” according to his Alumni Association biography.

Dick Wintermote, former director of the Alumni Association, thanked him for “his sterling example of professional accomplishment and service to his country, and for his inspirational efforts to enhance the American way of life.”

Throughout his life Thayer kept the University close. He donated $409 from 1953 to 1974, kept in close contact with his college friends and always wore his Phi Gamma Delta fraternity ring.

“He loved KU,” his daughter, Brynn Thayer, an actress in Los Angeles, said. “He wore his ring his entire life; he had a lot of feelings about that ring.”

Brynn said the University was always important to her father because he had great memories from the time he spent as a student in Lawrence.

He went to high school in Wichita and studied for a short time at Wichita State University. After a few years off, he transferred to the University of Kansas — where he was a B-average student — to major in petroleum engineering, enrolling at the same time in the Civilian Pilot Training Program.

Thayer dropped out to join the U.S. Navy during World War II and after the war became a test pilot for experimental planes.

“I don’t really regret it,” Thayer said of leaving the University early in a magazine interview. “I don’t know what added benefits I would have gotten. I don’t ever recall being sorry I didn’t finish. I knew at the time I really wanted aviation as a career.”

Eventually, he began selling planes and was the elected president, chairman and CEO of L.V.T. Corporation.

Thayer was also the chairman of the Boy Scouts of America in 1977.

Stanley Learned, a 1924 graduate in civil engineering and also a KU benefactor, nominated Thayer for the award six years in a row before he was honored. Learned, the namesake for Learned Hall, was president and CEO of Phillips Petroleum Company.

He came to Lawrence to accept his award in May of 1979 with his wife, Margery — a flight attendant he met while working as a pilot at TWA in 1947 — his brother and his sister-in-law.

In a letter back to Wintermote, Thayer wrote that the nicest thing about coming to accept his award was that he wouldn’t be required to make any formal remarks.

“However, a response of some kind may be spontaneous,” he said.

Brynn said he was an open, joyous man, and that he was always one to tell it like it was.

In 1983, Thayer was appointed the chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and given the “No. 2” job at the Pentagon — the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

A year later, he resigned amid an investigation into his work concerning insider trading from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Thayer didn’t make any money on the insider trading tips, but he made his friends an estimated $1.9 million.

He was ultimately sentenced to four years in prison and fined $560,000. In a letter to Wintermote, Thayer said he wasn’t sure how he got where he was.

“The overriding interest right now is how do I get the hell out,” he wrote. “In the last few weeks, I’ve talked with several of my old KU friends who I have managed to stay in contact with over the years and it’s been a big help in stabilizing my mental attitude.”

According to articles written after his sentencing, one of his KU fraternity brothers, Bob Radcliffe, said Thayer was a good man and the courts made an example of him.

Thayer was released two years later, and Brynn said his love for life hadn’t changed.

She said he didn’t hold grudges and that he looked at the positive.

“He was never bitter. He took the medicine,” she said.

Brynn said her father taught her not to fear anything, to be conscious of her surroundings, and to go for the ride of it.

“He was larger than life,” she said. “He was a daredevil and he loved to do everything and every day to the fullest.”