Morgan Heywood

The world lost a hell of a man on Tuesday, December 13th, 2022. After a courageous and hard fought battle with Lung Cancer, Morgan passed away peacefully surrounded by family at McKay Dee Hospital. He was at peace with his decision and was incredibly brave when he made the decision to take back control of what cancer so harshly took away from him.

Morgan was born on October 15th, 1973 in Ogden, Utah to Bob and Nancy Heywood. His mom stated that he was an Angel birth due to him coming so quick and having a glowing white complexion at birth. He grew up with his 3 siblings Jason, Christy, and KC in Riverdale and went to T. H. Bell Jr. High and that is where he met the love of his life, Tarra. There, they won the award for cutest couple for their class in the yearbook. He was an absolute gentleman who would wait for Tarra outside every class to ensure she got to the next one safely. He went on to graduate as Valedictorian from Washington High School in 1991. They had their daughter, Chyanne, in 1993. They married June, 18th, 1994 in Lake Tahoe in a very intimate gathering in the mountains. They then had their son, Hunter, in 1998.

Morgan was a jack of all trades and seemed like a master of all to everyone who knew him. He worked at Autoliv for the last 25 years as an Industrial Engineer. He was constantly tinkering on something in the garage with his sons Hunter and Taylor, whether it be a vehicle, side-by-side, a boat, or some other type of machine or engine. He started his own business out of his home called Heywood Services and enjoyed that as a second job for a few years. He started the business out of his home to spend more time with his sons and to help fund his hunting addiction.

He has an incredible collection of trophies from his hunts over the years. He was always happiest waking up stupid early and freezing his butt off sitting in the meadow with his family, waiting for the Elk to wake up for their morning snack. He was an amazing outdoorsman that shared his love of the outdoors with anyone who knew him. He was lucky enough to draw out on a once in a lifetime hunt for Rocky Mtn. Big Horn Sheep in the Uinta Mountains. After 6 months of scouting and a month straight of hunting every single day, he finally found his trophy and was able to harvest an absolute beauty of an animal and he proudly has that fully mounted in his home along with so many other incredible trophies that he has harvested over the years. He also spent 2 weeks in Africa hunting with his wife and some friends and had an absolute blast hunting some unique animals. They were able to bring home a Kudu, Gemsbok, Zebra, Impala, Springbok, and a Warthog that he proudly shows to anyone who comes to visit. The meat from what they harvested went to struggling communities to help feed people in need, as well as helped provide food for cheetah sanctuaries in the area. He had so much fun doing so he had planned to go back with his family and friends again so he could share another adventure with some of his favorite people. He has spent time in Canada and Alaska on bear hunts and moose hunts and has some incredible trophies from those adventures, as well.

He owns property up in Manila with his sister near Flaming Gorge where he spent nearly every weekend in the summer fishing, going on buggy rides, hiking and doing anything outdoors. He was an incredible fisherman and caught some of the biggest Lake Trout that we have ever seen in our lives.  "Captain Morgan" still holds the record for biggest fish on not only his boat but on some of his friends and family members boats as well.

He loved being outdoors. Even at home he was truly happiest outside in the yard or in the garage. In 2021, he turned his favorite hunting spot into a cozy venue so his daughter could marry the man of her dreams, Taylor, in the family's favorite spot in the mountains. He built the altar and seating from deadfall and fixed the bridge over the creek so it was safe for everyone to walk over. In true Heywood fashion, we all made sure that we didn't leave an impact on the meadow and that everything we used was able to be taken down and added back to the forest to preserve the beauty of the meadow.

He taught Hunter how to be an incredible man and an amazing father and taught Chyanne how a woman should be treated by how he loved his wife. He was a father to Taylor and his guidance has helped shape him in every aspect of his life and career. He has been Tarra's best friend for over 28 years and they built a beautiful life together surrounded by an incredible army of family and friends.

Morgan led an incredible life with way too many memories to list in this memorial. We will all miss him dearly and we are all a little lost without him.

Morgan is survived by his loving wife, Tarra, son Hunter (Karla),  daughter Chyanne (Taylor), first granddaughter Oaklynn, mother Nancy Heywood, siblings Jason (Lynn) Heywood, Christy (Mike) Pierce, Kc (Mike) McAnaul, sister in-law Faydra (Steve) Guglietti,  step-mother Cathy Heywood, mother in-law Barbra Bonzo and father in-law Larry Hope, and many other family and friends that have become family that will miss him dearly every second of every day. He was preceded in death by his father, Bob Heywood. We love you and will see you again.

We will be doing a celebration of Morgan's life on Friday, December 16th from 3P - 9P (Open house style) at:

940 w. 7325 s.
Willard, Utah 84340

We would like to send a special thanks to the incredible medical team that helped take amazing care of Morgan during his Cancer Treatments and during his last hospital stay at McKay Dee Hospital. He had such an incredible and compassionate team working with him and we couldn't be more grateful for the kindness and compassion that was shown to not only Morgan, but to our entire family while we were there supporting him. Dr. Karren, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Paulman, all of the ICU nurses/techs (Jen, Will, Sara, Karlee, Paige) and for his final days the team of nurses that includes Brooke, Becky and Zach helped ensure he and his family were comfortable and didn't need anything at all so we could focus only on Morgan and being with him when it mattered the most.