Richard Alden Bumstead

Richard Alden Bumstead, 86, died unexpectedly in his sleep at his home in Naples FL on February 16, 2018. Born in Delaware, OH on September 11, 1931, he grew up in Bucyrus and attended Miami University in Ohio for two years before enlisting in the US Air Force. He served for four years and then completed his undergraduate degree at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, where he earned the distinction of Phi Beta Kappa with honors in 1957. At Kenyon, he was a member of the Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps and graduated as a commissioned US Air Force Lieutenant. He went on to earn his Masters Degree in Education at Connecticut University (1960) and another Masters Degree in Journalism at Columbia University (1964).

Following several years of writing and editing educational material for magazines in New York City, Richard became a free-lance journalist, working out of Boston, MA. In the early 1980s, he became a writer-editor for the US Information Agency (USIA). He loved to boast of one of his articles featured in USIA's leading magazine that was distributed to a foreign audience of 140 million people. The purpose of the article was to introduce our then new President, Bill Clinton, to the world.

Richard retired from federal service in 1995 and moved to Naples, where he very much enjoyed his favorite pastimes of ballroom dancing, golf and fly-fishing for snook and redfish. He loved to tell anecdotes about his poor golfing results, and he was far more successful at fly-fishing, but he excelled in classical ballroom dancing and was an admitted purist about technique.

Richard had a deep appreciation for his family and for family history, loving to tell (and re-tell) old stories and to recount his own foibles along with those of his younger brother, Daniel. He is survived by his son, Dean Prescott Bumstead, daughter-in-law, Kris Carlson, and grandson, Devon Carlson Bumstead, all of Bellingham, WA; nieces, Alden Bumstead of Providence, RI and Leslie Bumstead of Takoma Park, MD. He was predeceased by his daughter, Jennifer. In Naples, he is survived by his brother, Daniel Bumstead; sister-in-law, Barrett Edwards, and his companion and dancing partner, Marlene Simmons.


A memorial gathering will be held on Saturday, March 31st, 5-7PM at Fuller Funeral Home, 4735 Tamiami Trail East. No flowers please.