Sadly, we lost a life long friend, college mate and fraternity brother, Richard Howe on Tuesday August 5th, 2003 to a work related mishap.
All of his old fraternity brothers are at a loss over this tragic death at such a wonderful part of life. We will all miss him and all the pleasure of friendship, cheer and sharing which he brought us all. So here are a collection of photos of Richie involved in the annual alumni events at Gerle Creek since October 1997 as well as a couple original shots of him as a college student and a frater of Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity at Humboldt State College, 1969 and 1970..........In his honor since he was the originator of our annual golfing tournament in the forest, we will hereafter refer to the annual tournament as the Richie Howe Gerle Creek Memorial Golf Tournament..........
Here is an official chapter photo from 1969 in front of the Teke House at 1390 I Street, Arcata......2nd row from the bottom....2nd person in from the left side is Richie Howe.............
The above photo is the official Teke chapter photo in 1970 showing members standing in front of the house at 1390 I Street, Arcata, Ca...Richie Howe is in the second row from the bottom, the third person from the left.......
Richie Howe was the person who got the alumni group hooked into golf during the Fall event. As the story goes, during the first big gathering during the Fall 1997, Richie brought along a bucket of orange golf balls and a half dozen putters and challenged some of the attendees to a little game Richie referred to as "Putting for dollars." This challenge led to George Boring, Milt Iskra and Steve Quiggle plus several others to indulge in a little bit of golf during the weekend, which progressed to Richie organizing some holes and an actual competition involving teams of alumni hitting these orange golf balls throughout our forest...Everyone had such a great time, that it evolved with Richie showing up every Fall with a new and different vision for the tournament. He did such a great job that many of the alums who had not yet made one of the Fall gatherings were intrigued enough to attend just to join in the fun. We will all be indebted to Richie's charisma in making this happen for all of us every Fall......he really made it a lot of fun...even for the guys who had never played the game of golf........the following paragraph was part of the report I wrote on our first golfing event created by Richie Howe after the 1997 gathering at the Creek.......
Of course, in addition to the jam session on Saturday Night, the most significant other day time action by this group was participation in the First Annual Teke/Lagnaf/Gerle Creek Open Chipping for Dollars Golf Tournament! Our resident Golf Pro, whose constant patter and praise for participants at just the right time, Richie Howe, set up on very short notice a grueling course which was a challenge to all! Here is a great shot of the Tournament Director, Course Superintendent and Golf Pro all in one with a brew and words of encouragement for his charges who are happily looking for their "balls" on the beautiful Gerle Creek Course! Well done Richie! You truly captured the imagination of the all the locals as well as the rest of us! That is George Boring, Milt Iskra, Richie Howe and Steve Quiggle all wondering where the Hell their "balls" are!
For the finale, the group decided that a photograph for posterity was necessary, thus necessitating an unplanned halt to the 1st annual chipping for dollars tournament!
Here is the very first golf tournament group from 1997 with Richie in the first standing row, second from the right next to Rich Hasper on his right.....everyone is wearing jackets as there still was a bit of snow on the ground from the early October snow storm the first night of the gathering.......
Here is the 1999 Group photo with Richie in the first row of standing folks on the left end........
Here is a Saturday night shot from the 2000 gathering with Richie Howe down in the bottom row in the middle between Tom Groarke on the left and Steve Quiggle on his right.......
Here is the official tournament players photo from the 2000 gathering with our Tournament Director, Richie Howe right down in front on the left hand side of the bottom row, with his tournament players assembled behind him......
Here is the Fall 2001 official photo and Richie is just on the right side of the sing next to Thriller, standing next to Carl Samuelson.....
Known to all of us as "the Bell." The Bell went missing from the fraternity house in the early 70s to remain missing for all these years till Richie brought it with him to Fall 2000 gathering and presented it.......Mike Skehen had held onto the Bell all these years and decided to send it along to the alumni group with Richie......
We will all miss him.....Fair Winds and following Seas Richie...............
01/15/05