5 minute read
Remembering (and Toasting) Richard Kelly
At a memorial service just one day shy of his 73rd birthday, family members, friends, colleagues, and former students offered a birthday toast to Richard A. Kelly, who died on August 10 at home in Littleton, Colo. Kelly taught at Colorado Academy for more than 30 years. More than 200 people gathered at CA’s Campus Center on Saturday, August 25, to celebrate Richard’s eclectic interests and full life.
With music that reflected his wide-ranging taste—Bach, Carmina Burana, Native American flutes—and remembrances that brought laughter and tears, many speakers— including former students—shared stories about a unique man who made an indelible impression on everyone who was fortunate enough to have known him. Richard’s daughter Meg spoke to the many people who had come to honor her father. She reflected on growing up with him— and holding on to his memory. “When I was little and we would swim in the ocean, he would take me out to where I couldn’t stand. It was an adventure! I’d ride on his back, my chubby arms clinging to his neck, usually very tightly. He grumbled, ‘You’re choking me.’ ‘I’m holding on,’ I would say. I couldn’t seem to loosen my grip. “If I could talk to my dad today, I would say, ‘Not cool. Leaving me, leaving us, like that wasn’t cool.’ A younger version of me would say, ‘But Dad, I’m still holding on, just like in the ocean.’
“Then I would say, ‘Thank you. Thank you for the lessons, thank you for the generosity, thank you for the adventure and for the fearlessness you taught me. I can only hope to have as much light as you did.’”
Already as a young man, Richard Kelly was an explorer—of ideas, of possibilities, of experiences. In high school, he traveled to Harlem to tutor young people, and a few years later he traveled to the southern part of the United States to register voters. With a BA from Amherst College, he explored mathematical logic and the history of science as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Harvard. He earned his master’s degree in Leeds, England, and also pursued his doctorate of philosophy in logic. Richard’s sense of exploration—that willingness to go into the deep water— brought him west to teach at Colorado Academy in 1981, and he remained at the school until his retirement in 2013. Through those years, he taught thousands of students various subjects—mathematics, economics, English, and logic. A master teacher, he led CA’s Math Department for many years. “Richard saw math as an adventure and process of discovery, and that’s the way he taught the subject,” Head of School Mike Davis, PhD, remembered about CA’s long-tenured teacher. “He instructed his students to ‘Sniff around a problem and be calm. Look at your tool kit.’” Students flourished in his classroom. When he retired, Caitlin Gile Morris ‘96 remembered, “From his teaching, I learned you have to approach math with a calm and logical brain. That turned the light on for me, and I went on to get a degree in finance.” Countless students’ lives were altered by Kelly urging them to study math, economics, philosophy, and to follow their passions. Kelly’s pursuit of adventure often meant he was ahead of this time. He developed a popular and highly regarded Advanced Placement Economics course to elevate the personal financial literacy of his students. Under his tutelage, his students won numerous essay awards in the field of economics. One colleague remembers his discussing the coming role of technology and computers at least a decade before everyone else. Students looked forward to Kelly’s annual appearance as Scrooge in the Faculty Follies. But he was playing against type—he had no Scrooge in him. He loved his students, and as his brother Robert said at his memorial service, “he loved Colorado Academy.” “In class, he was serious, but also full of joy and humor,” Dr. Davis said. “He had fun with his students and understood the need to inject humor in ways to help them have comfort with challenging ideas and concepts.”
At the memorial service, Dr. Davis spoke about how he felt lucky to have known
and worked with Kelly. He remembered Richard’s late-night emails sent to the CA faculty on a variety of topics, providing frequent material for coffee break conversations the next morning. “Richard’s teaching will reverberate through the generations, because he impacted thousands of students, and I consider myself one of them, because he shared his philosophies and discoveries about life,” Dr. Davis said to those gathered at the memorial service.
“Far beyond the walls of CA, Richard had developed a reputation among readers of college applications around the country for the recommendations that he would write for CA students. Cathy Nabbefeld from our college office shared, ‘I still remember the day one of the senior admissions deans from Stanford called me and asked, “Who is this Richard Kelly?!” “And for his part, Richard relished writing recommendations. What Richard knew in his heart was that every student was worth writing about. He said, ‘There was always a story to tell, and I never turned a kid down, even after hundreds and hundreds of recs written.’
“As he prepared to say farewell to students in his last year of teaching, he predicted what he would miss the most. ‘Oh, my students! The kids keep your mind alive. They keep my brain working. They keep me on my toes. I will miss them in spades!’”
Kelly served as Board Chair on The Colorado Endowment for the Humanities and The Denver Free University, and on the Board of the Latin American Research and Service Agency (LARASA), creating an Hispanic Agenda for Colorado. He recently joined the Economic Education Advisory Council at Denver’s Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank.
After retiring in 2013, Kelly traveled the world, covering six continents and too many countries to count. But, as Meg wrote in his obituary, “Ocean Grove, N.J., remained his favorite beach where, every year during the last week of July and the first week of August, he could be found finishing the New York Times crossword, playing Scrabble, and jumping the waves.” n
Richard’s longtime close friend Isabel Lopez and his daughter Meg Kelly smile as Dr. Mike Davis recalled Richard’s sense of humor at the memorial service.
