Richard Michael Skala

Richard Michael Skala of Keller, Texas, passed away on Sunday, October 27 in Grapevine,Texas. Rich was a good man and will always be remembered as a loving husband and father to his family. For the rest of us he was a trusted, hardworking colleague and loyal friend who was always there with thoughtful advice or a classic Rich Skala one-liner.

Richard was born on November 22, 1947 in Glendale, CA to Bonnie Lucille Norman and Richard Benjamin Skala. He is survived by his wife, Georgia, son and daughter-in-law Brian and Elizabeth Skala, daughter and son-in-law Stacey Skala and Matthew Perez, and his granddaughter, Marlowe Bird Perez. He is also survived by his siblings, Sonja Maria Cabana, Fred Franklin Charnley, Susan Skala and Carolyn Skala. He will be dearly missed by those he left behind, and of course we are all very sad and heartbroken while we grieve the loss of our loved one. But let’s all try to remember that each person and each passing is part of a larger picture, and that all we paint a little bit of that picture every day. So let’s honor Rich by being good artists of our lives, and by doing it with evenhanded and thoughtful strokes.

I say this because above all else, Richard was a passionate man who threw himself into the things he loved with focus and intent. For example, his first true love was Motown and rock n’ roll music, and he pursued this love with his trademark dedication and hard work. He started on the saxophone, but before you knew it, he could pick up just about any instrument and play by ear to nearly any song he heard on the radio. He was a talented guy with big brain. Back then, Rich was also into his show cars, like his prized, electric purple 1967 Buick Riviera. He’d take that sweet baby out and cruise haunts like the infamous Bob’s Big Boy in West Covina after wrapping up his shift at the Texaco family owned gas station. After graduating from West Covina High School in 1966, he set out to become a Sheriff, which may surprise some in this room. However, it was General Telephone (GTE ... now known as Verizon) that came along with
a dollar more an hour to start out as a telephone lineman. After serving in the Navy for two years, GTE turned out to be his lifelong company. The hard working lineman who started out climbing telephone poles put himself through night school to earn his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Redlands and slowly made his way up the corporate ladder as a loyal employee until his retirement in 2005 as Division Manager of Technical Support Services after 38 years of employment. And you know what? Even after all this, the fires of personal growth still burned brightly; I loved how Rich was a lifelong student with a thirst for knowledge as he
grew older. He was always enrolled in something at Tarrant County Community College, where he devoted himself to the the study of Spanish, Civics and History. He was always hungry to know a little bit more, to push himself a bit farther, to admit he didn’t know it all, (but by golly
he was trying!)

Family was important to Rich, and his own family started when he met the love of his life, Georgia Fae Pitchie, at Mount San Antonio Junior College in the Fall of 1970. After a good old-fashioned, characteristically tenacious courting by Rich, Georgia finally gave him a chance, and being the true charmer he was, Rich won Georgia over and they began a new life together, setting off for the Pacific sunset. They married on December 18th, 1971 in Baldwin Park, CA and would have celebrated their 48th wedding anniversary this year. Their son, Brian, was born on June 22, 1974, and their daughter, Stacey, was born a couple years later, on June 29, 1977. The new family spent the majority of their early years in Alta Loma, CA before moving to Newbury Park, CA in 1988. In the early 1990s, Richard’s work relocated them to the DFW area, and since then he and Georgia have lived in Keller, becoming good friends and neighbors to us all.

Like a lot of fellas, sports were a huge part of Rich’s life and I think he’d like a last hurrah of them from the sidelines. He was an avid bowler and a real competitor on the lanes around town, where he rolled strikes for at least 20 years of bowling in our local leagues. Rich was a loyal person, and that loyalty made him a true fan of his teams. In California, he loved the Los Angeles Lakers and the L.A. Rams, and of course after moving to Texas he became a true fan of America’s Team, the Dallas Cowboys, for more than 25 years. In 2018, Rich was able to cross a huge item off his bucket list by taking his son Brian to the Super Bowl in Atlanta. His teams didn’t make it that year, unfortunately, but it didn’t diminish the joy he took in attending the game. He and Brian talked about the spectacle and the wonderful week they had for months.

Rich would also want us to celebrate his love for music today. His favorites were always playing in the house, giants like Creedence Clearwater Revival, BB King, The Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, among others. And of course Tom Petty. He loved him more than the others combined. Luckily, he had the chance to cross some bucket list concerts off his list in recent years as well, acts like Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, and of course... Sir Tom Petty. I think we can all agree that Rich was truly one of Tom Petty’s biggest fans, and it was Tom who played nonstop more than anyone else in the Skala household, even into the final hours of his life.

Rich lived a good life and passed away as well as anyone could; surrounded by his immediate family, with every one of them having a chance to say goodbye. He will be missed by all us, of course, and the best we can do is honor his memory by living with dedication and love to our families and passions. What Rich would want, I think, is for all of us to not be too sad, to live thoughtfully, and more than anything else, to never be afraid to pick up an instrument and try to play along to the music.