I am so sorry to see Dick's passing. Please accept my deepest sympathy.
Janet Boots
January 31, 2025
This is from Kay Meredith Dusheck from her friend and scribe. Kay contacted me late last night.
“I still can’t believe Dick is gone,” she lamented. “Do you remember how he loved Little Debbie’s, Diana?”
So many people will never forget Dick. Kay and I mourned loosing Dick all day yesterday, how knowing he’s not breathing the same air we are, will unbalance things somehow.
Kay will remember him when she sees a Little Debbie. How cool is that?
Good bye old friend.
Diana Pameticky Tharp
January 31, 2025
Deepest sympathies for your loss. I had the honor of working with Dick for many years.
John Snyder
January 30, 2025
Dick and I worked together in the quality lab at ADM. The night shift was where the magic happened. Dick, Kay Meredith and I were an unlikely trio whose feelings for each other were wide and deep. Some would say we went a bit around the bend! It was night shift after all.
I will never forget the three of us the moment the lab radio began to play Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” We three would interrupt a starch cook to move to the center aisle, link arms over our shoulders, and like The Rockettes dressed as bakers, we’d begin high kicking in unison. We’d then start belting out the lyrics. We would do this come hell or high water. This tableau could only be improved if Foreman Dean Kuhse came in and, after removing the liner from his hard hat, and then reseating it, joined in.
Not many people knew or saw this Dick Coleson.
Dick was much more than a tight-assed, workaholic lab tech who wanted to be the best of best at his job. He drug the Vietnam experience along within him every day. Some times late at night he would share his time in Vietnam with Kay and me. On occasion we’d touch a memory so painful Dick would retreat to the back of the lab to still his soul.
I loved Dick Coleson in all his humanity. He will always be a part of me. It was a privilege to know him.
Diana Pameticky Tharp
January 30, 2025