Rich was born in Norfolk, Nebraska on May 19, 1927, and grew up in Madison. His father Otto Valentine Scheer was the son of German immigrants and homesteaders in the Madison area and was mayor and a successful auctioneer and businessman. Rich’s mother Georgia Anne Boggs graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1918 with a BFA and teaching degree. She taught Latin at the high school in Madison where she met Otto. They married May 28, 1924, and had three sons: Tom, Richard, and George.
Rich grew up a popular and active young man who played jazz piano to entertain his high school classmates. He earned a Regents Scholarship to the University of Nebraska but instead enlisted in the Navy two days before his 18th birthday. Rich began active service at the Great Lakes training center north of Chicago in June 1945. He was sent to Shoemaker California and shipped out to Hawaii. Rich served on the USS Charleston where he sailed to the Far East just after the war ended. He was honorably discharged July 26, 1946, after earning the Victory Medal in the Asiatic-Pacific. Although Rich’s service time was just over a year, he had a lifetime of stories from his adventures.
Rich returned home and earned a BA degree from the University of Nebraska in 1950. He earned a MA from the University of Florida where he studied with one of Wittgenstein’s students, and a PhD from the University of Nebraska. Rich met his first wife Cory Anderson at UNL where she was working in the library. They married in 1953. The young couple moved to Albuquerque New Mexico where he taught mathematics at the University of New Mexico. Their three daughters were born in 1955, 1956, and 1957 in Lincoln while they lived in New Mexico. Rich completed his dissertation and earned his PhD in 1958. He taught Philosophy and Logic at South Dakota State in Brookings, the University of Missouri in Columbia, and Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, where he taught until he retired. His first marriage ended in 1968.
Rich married Shirley Anderson Kovanda in 1972. They had been friends for years, and had nearly fifty years of traveling, dancing, eating, and entertaining together. They made many friends and were close to her children as well as his from his first marriage. Although he was a quiet man by nature, Rich made friends wherever he went. Rich walked several miles a day and played tennis well into his eighties. He battled multiple bouts of cancer without complaint. As his wife’s health failed, Rich took over cooking and found he enjoyed it, developing a repertoire of recipes such as lasagna and hearty soups. He baked cookies for his wife regularly until her death in September 2020.
Rich is survived by his three daughters Mary (Kirk) Teters, Laurie (Jim) Brunner, Anne (Ted) Albers, stepson Robert Scheer, stepdaughter Sara Kovanda, grandchildren Cassidy Kovanda, Joe Kovanda, Kyle Brunner, Katie Kovanda, Kelsea Brunner and Emily Albers, great-granddaughter Tilda Kovanda, and several nieces and nephews on both sides of his family.
Rich’s parents, two brothers, stepsons Dave, Kim, and Tom Kovanda, and wife Shirley Scheer pre-deceased him. At his request he was cremated.
Donations may be made to the American Cancer Society.