Losing a good friend and a great citizen

Richard dead? Wasn’t he just in the office delivering Lions Club calendars or picking up bundles of old newspapers to take to Banks County to recycle? Impossible.

I got to know Richard and Anna when Barbara and I bought a house around the corner on Dogwood Trail. Our back yards abutted. Richard was a prolific gardener and I a novice, and I learned a lot in over-the-fence chats. He gave me roots for blueberries that I started there, and when Barbara and I built our current house he did the same. Every morning I eat a few blueberries with my oatmeal from bushes that originated in his yard.

The first thing you noticed about Richard was that he had more energy than a classroom of toddlers after a sugar snack, and he applied that energy to everything — as an elementary school teacher, then principal, as associate superintendent of schools, as principal of Banks County High School.

If I had a dollar for every person whose life Richard impacted for good, I could retire.

I remember how he kept comic books in the elementary school.

“Kids will read those,” he said.

When he was principal, Richard knew every kid at Commerce Elementary School by name, knew how that child was doing and where he or she should be at any time. He was passionate about children learning. After he retired, the first thing he did was sign up to tutor and mentor kids at the elementary school across the street from his house. He helped a pair of young immigrant twins learn to speak English – they just graduated from East Jackson Comprehensive High School.

He was passionate about local history, writing a book on Banks County cemeteries. He was a driving force in the Commerce Lions Club and he and Anna worked tirelessly for Habitat for Humanity. He served on the Commerce Library Board.

About once a week, Richard came by the office to pick up old newspapers, which he took to Banks County, along with cardboard, for recycling. He wasn’t the type to approach quietly — two seconds into the office and everyone here knew Richard had arrived, bursting with cheer and enthusiasm. He collected aluminum cans from the schools and local businesses to help pay for eyeglasses through the Lions Club.

As shocking as his passing is, I suspect he would have approved of its suddenness. The idea of a bedridden Richard Chambers is unthinkable. Instead, he worked to the very end, milking every useable moment of life to the service of others.

Well done, Richard. We’ll miss you.

Mark Beardsley is editor of The Commerce News. He lives in Commerce.