When Jeannie Dunham first met Richard Holicky, she was struck by his indomitable spirit, intellect, independence, sense of humor — the whole package. “And he was in great shape, buff,” she recalls. “He was in a manual chair. It was Jan. 2, 1997.” Her remembering the exact date says a great deal about why Richard and Jeannie were life partners from that day until his passing on Jan. 5, 2023.

Holicky was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1946. He moved to Idaho Springs, a Colorado mountain town, after graduating from Ohio University with a degree in psychology. Later, he earned a master’s in counseling from Metropolitan State College (now University) in Denver. He was active and athletic, especially in his mountain life — skiing, biking, rafting, running marathons. He adapted well to his environment wherever it led. He taught middle school, drove a train in the Henderson mine in Colorado, and enjoyed “living off the land” in Maine for a while.

He “joined the club” — sustaining an incomplete cervical SCI in 1989 from a skiing accident — the year of New Mobility’s first issue. Looking back, it seems NM and Holicky were meant for each other. His first article was written in 1991 and published in NM in 1992. He wrote as many as 100 articles for the magazine, right up to the January-February issue of this year. No writer has written more.

It was my pleasure to work closely with Richard, who I affectionately knew as Chardo, from the time I became editor in 2000 to the present. Our conversations were fun as well as enlightening, and we shared the same dark humor and memories from the Hippie Days. He was known for his stories about activists springing wheelchair users from nursing homes in Mississippi and shepherding them into their own apartments in Denver. His knowledge and connections shined in his many stories of people coping with various SCI complications.

“Richard wrote great stories for more than 30 years,” says NM Publisher Jean Dobbs. “He explored difficult subjects like pain and depression honestly, but he always held space for hope. If he wrote about struggles like long bouts with pressure sores, he found people who knew how to stay positive. If he wrote about wheelchair users getting warehoused in nursing homes, he found people who got free. Sometimes the silver linings were thin, but he never stopped looking for them. We will miss his voice in NEW MOBILITY.”

Richard was a firm believer in the value of peer support, and in August 2020, he wrote about an SCI group he helped form at Craig Hospital. Kathy Hulse, a social worker at Craig, remembers how important the group was to him. “It meant so much to him to be able to give back. It wasn’t just the group,” she says, “it was the mentoring. He was involved from the beginning: interviewing, quizzing us, recruiting, keeping the group alive with thought-provoking issues, including the tough ones.”

Richard’s intelligence and humility made a lasting impression on the group’s members. “He was always teaching and enjoyed seeing people grow after their injuries,” says one long-time attendee. Richard Zoomed into the group on January 4 to say goodbye to everyone. “He was very lucid,” says Hulse, “telling us what we meant to him, thanking us. When we heard that he died the very next day, we were shocked. No one knew that goodbye would be his last.”

Richard struggled the last several months of his life with what he considered the most important issue of all — quality of life. He kept fighting and writing and mentoring until complications made living more unbearable than rewarding. He grew thin and weak. When he stopped eating, the end came soon. He died peacefully at home with Jeannie at his side.

A memorial service is scheduled for this June in Colorado and we would love to share any stories of how Richard’s work impacted our readers over the years. Please leave any memories or well wishes in the comments and we will pass them along.