The Geezer has departed and will no longer provide new items.

Richard J. Klade left us on December 30, 2025 after 89 years of living well, laughing often, and loving much.

Dick was born Jan. 1, 1936 at Tomahawk, WI, to wonderful parents, Fred and Margaret Klade. As a youth, his passion was playing baseball on youth league, high school, American Legion, and county league teams. He also was a high school class president, saxophonist in the band, and a football player.

He started working at age 10 as a shoeshine boy and later was a waiter, farm and canning factory laborer, supermarket butcher, and printing shop helper. His savings and two small scholarships financed study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned a journalism degree in 1957. At UW, he was a member of Sigma Delta Chi, professional journalism fraternity, and was elected president of Sigma Nu social fraternity.

He served with pride in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1960, primarily as a troop information specialist at Fort Sill, OK.

Dick's professional work included stints as City Editor of the De Pere (WI) Journal-Democrat and Sports Editor of the Daily Tribune in Wisconsin Rapids. He also worked in public relations and sales promotion at The West Bend Company, Allis-Chalmers, and the McCoy Job Corps Center as an RCA employee. His writing occasionally appeared in the Sporting News and other national media. Dick achieved his two minutes of fame in 1973 when he presented a report on the "CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite."

He joined a great outfit, the U.S. Forest Service, in 1968. He served as a writer-editor at the Forest Products Laboratory, Public Information Officer for the Boise National Forest and Eastern and Intermountain Regions, and Director of Research Information for the Intermountain Station in Ogden where he retired in 1994. He was awarded 11 Certificates of Merit for outstanding performance during his Forest Service career.

Along the way he was a charter member of the De Pere Junior Chamber of Commerce, a Kiwanis Club member in Boise, and for several years volunteered as a Greek Awards applications judge for Weber State University. He devoted more than 16 years to serving his neighbors in various capacities with the White Barn Homeowners Association in Pleasant View, UT.

Dick married the love of his life and best friend, Sandy, in West Bend, WI in 1961. Their son Lee, a stained glass artist in Plainwell, MI, was raised to be an honest man with good values by Sandy while his father pursued less important activities. Sandy, Lee, daughter-in-law Karen, and the little dog Rose remain with us, along with five nieces and nephews.

Dick loved his family, people of integrity, trying to hit golf balls (he got four holes-in-one, but said all were accidental), the Green Bay Packers, and Dixieland jazz, in about that order. He was a member of People's Church, a Unitarian-Universalist congregation in Kalamazoo, where for several years he chaired the Men's Discussion Group and met many new friends.