Richard Buckner (STH'89)
Original source of obituary text can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/ploughandstars/
“It is with great sadness that the Plough reports the death of the Good Reverend Richard Buckner.
Richard first came to us roughly forty years ago. Fresh off a stint playing professional football in Canada, and in Cambridge to study at the Divinity School, he happened across the bar and walked in. To an outsider, Richard and the Plough might have seemed like an odd match. Young, African-American, religious, and from the deep south, Richard wasn’t the archetypal Irish bar dweller. Filled with Irish from Ireland and Irish-Americans, the Plough was unmistakably Irish, but it – like Richard – was more than just a member of its tribe. A place of musicians, writers, academics, blue collars, white collars; different religions, different hues, different creeds; a place longtime owner and former bartender, Peter O’Malley, once described while pulling a pint, to meet people “with failings more glamorous than your own.” In other words, a place where one could be an outsider and fit in. In that, Richard found a home.
Over the years, Richard became a fixture at the Plough, sometimes doing work for the bar, but mostly being present, often with a High Life nearby, ever-ready to give a warm hand shake or hug, or break into a hearty laugh during a chat. Richard came from a great big, extended, farm-owning family in South Carolina, and the Plough’s walls are lined with tales of his youth and family, then and now. But Richard’s life in Cambridge was his chosen path, and the Plough and so many others in New England who came to know him were his chosen family. We are all lucky to have counted him among us.
Among many things, Richard must be remembered for his coaching. He led the Milton Academy girls cross-country teams to numerous New England titles during his 20-plus years there, and countless others whom he coached privately to success. There were few subjects he enjoyed discussing more than his girls’ great victories. In Richard’s honor, we remember that work and those victories, and we celebrate his heart, so big as it was, filled with a grand mix of joy, love, and sorrow, always ready to embrace.”
The memorial service for Richard will take place on Sunday, April 30th from 2:30 to 5:30 PM at the Greek American Political Club, 288 Green St., Cambridge.