RIP Richard Stucky

[UngulateNerd92]

I have some very upsetting and devastating news, though this happened earlier this year on May 8th, I just found out about this today. Dr. Richard Stucky , a personal friend of mine, and the former President of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and former Curator of Paleoecology & Evolution at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science in Denver, Denver County, Colorado passed away. I first met Dr. Stucky when I was last in Denver in August of 2018 and have kept in contact with him ever since. He was a very nice guy and has been very helpful with regards to career advice for pursuing the natural sciences, particularly paleontology. He was a warm and generous man and I am grateful that he took the time to out of his day to meet with me when I was in town. I am also grateful that he took the time he did to read through my manuscript before it was published (and polished) to share his thoughts, feedback, and advice. I also appreciate the time when he came through after telling him about failing a test in my physical geology class at Pima Community College, and reminded me that pursuing a degree in paleontology didn't have to be done through geology, but could also be done through physical anthropology (which is how he got into paleontology). I greatly miss him and always will... Dr. Stucky had an extensive career which started at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. His specialization was mammals of the Eocene Epoch (56.0 to 33.9 million years ago) and has done a great deal of field work in the southwestern Wyoming which included his discoveries and descriptions of Malfelis badwaterensis (A Hypercarnivorous Creodont of the family Oxyaenidae) in 2008 and Gagadon minimonstrum (an Eocene Artiodactyl from the family Homacodontidae) in 2014. The holotype of the former is kept at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the holotype of the latter is kept at the University of Colorado Boulder Museum of Natural History in Boulder, Boulder County, Colorado. When coming across and reading through scientific papers that he has written or contributed to, I often texted him and told him, and he would ask me what I learned from them. Though Dr. Stucky's main area of interest and study was the Eocene, he was largely involved with the excavation and research at the Snowmastodon Site (also known as the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site) which is the location of an important Pleistocene fossil excavation near Snowmass Village, Pitkin County, Colorado. After retirement from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Dr. Stucky was an avid and passionate artist, which he was quite talented at. I miss you Richard, I appreciate your friendship. I wish I could have done more to be in consistent contact and nurture our friendship...

Rest in Peace, Richard...

For those of you that are interested, here is his profile on Researchgate; https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Richard-K-Stucky-2002012034

 

[UngulateNerd92]

Copy-Pasted below is an obituary written on the website of Fairmount Funeral Home;

"This week we have lost Richard Stucky, a great friend and family member. “Richard Keith Stucky of Denver passed away on May 4, 2022, following a courageous battle with lung cancer. Richard was born on December 11, 1949, in Newton, Kansas. He graduated from Newton High School in 1967 and attended Fort Hays Kansas State College. He married his high school sweetheart, Barbara Krehbiel in 1969, and in 1971 the couple moved to Denver, where Richard earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in anthropology from the University of Colorado. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, he and Barb returned to Denver, where he spent his career at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He served as Head of the Department of Earth Sciences, Chief Curator, Vice President of Research and Collections, Vice President of Programs, and finally returned to his research roots as Curator of Evolution and Ecology. Two of his proudest accomplishments while at the museum were the establishment of the Paleontology Certification Program and the establishment, along with Dr. Paul Rosen and his wife Harriet, of the Teen Science Scholars Program, which is thriving today. Following retirement in 2014, he embarked on a second career as an artist, taking classes at the Art Students League of Denver and learning to paint in oils. He and Barb (his wife of 52 years) also continued to enjoy traveling to many foreign destinations. Another hobby, stamp collecting, led to a successful ebay business for him and Barb in their retirement years. Richard will be remembered for his kind and generous spirit, infectious laugh, and love of nature and of life itself. Please consider a donation to either the Teen Science Scholars Program at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., Denver, CO 80205 or to the Stucky Postdoctoral Fellowship Fund, also at the Museum: www.dmns.org/stuckyfellowship.” (This is an excerpt from his obituary on fairmountfuneralhome.com)"