Record details
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I grew up in Durham, North Carolina, best known as the home of Duke University, but I ended up going to college in Tyler, Texas, which for me will always be best known as the home of Tyler Junior College!
My older brother, Robert, was a tremendous athlete and the first in our family to find his way to Tyler. Robert could have gone on scholarship to almost any college but Coach Floyd Wagstaff was the best coach, had the best teams and was the best recruiter we ever knew. More importantly, Coach Wag delivered on his promises. Robert came to TJC, played on TJC’s national championship football team and was part of TJC’s legendary team that went to the Rose Bowl in 1960. Robert then got a scholarship to Southern Methodist University (SMU) and went on to great successes.
Although not as gifted in football as Robert, I was also tall and athletic so after serving in the military, I came to TJC, too. President Harry Jenkins seemed to know most of the 834 students enrolled at TJC, and he called me to his office to see if I’d help TJC with a new fitness initiative, a program in which President John F. Kennedy had challenged young Americans to get involved. I helped Coach Herb Richardson and had a wonderful experience.
Besides being involved at TJC, I held various jobs to work my way through school. I sold shoes at Leon’s downtown on the square and found I had a knack for business. I discovered that I liked people and that in a town like Tyler, your good name was your most valuable asset. If you treated people fairly and honestly – just as you would want to be treated by others – you could be very successful.
The lessons I learned at TJC from people like Dr. Jenkins, Coach Wagstaff, Coach Herb Richardson, Dr. Jean Browne, and Dr. Hugh Mills put me in a position to be successful at college, but even more importantly, throughout my life. At a small school, I knew my teachers and they knew me as a person. My teachers, advisors, and counselors were always available, cared about me and believed that they weren’t successful unless I was.
It was very different after TJC when I went on to North Texas State University. It was also a fine school and I found myself well prepared for their academic rigor, but I became a very small fish in a big pond with 150-200 other students in some of my classes. I never again would have the same close relationship with teachers and friends that I had at TJC, so even after nearly 50 years, the memories of my time at Tyler Junior College burn the brightest of all.
After college, I went to work back in North Carolina for Hanes Corporation. A few years later, I was national sales manager of five different companies in New York City. I met a beautiful young lady buyer from Atlanta and broke my own rule by buying her a cup of coffee. My rule was to never try to buy anyone’s business by picking up the tab, but I was smitten by that little lady and still am! How I convinced someone like her from a fine Southern family to consider a big talking oaf like me I’ll never know, but it was the best sale I ever made!
Carrie and I were a very successful team and after starting our own ladies wholesale apparel business (Richmar Fashions), we took it to #1 in the country with 7,422 accounts and a solid reputation for integrity. Our philosophy was to always treat everyone the way we hoped to be treated, to never put a “for sale” sign on our backs, and to operate with the highest ethical standards. We had learned that our reputation is the most important thing we own.
After 28 years, we sold our business. Carrie and I have been married for 33 years and are busier than ever. I have been the sponsor of the Texas Cowboys Professional Association Rodeo for 10 years and we are negotiating with the Pro Rodeo Cowboy Association to do a feasibility study to take pro rodeo to China. I have meetings scheduled in Beijing this month with the Ambassador to China at the Embassy in Beijing, as well as the Commissioner of the “Bird’s Nest” (the 2008 Olympic site) to facilitate our scheduling plans. Carrie’s college classmate is the wife of the President of Furman University which has one of the nation’s top programs in Chinese studies, so we have been very involved in China including funding students to study there. We’d love to help fund some TJC students to study in Asia, too, and we hope to continue to support TJC in any way we can. It is my wish in the future to start a rodeo school at TJC, as well as to fund other scholarship areas of need and to help future students achieve their dreams – what TJC did for me when I was a young man with big dreams and not much else.
- Biography
- TJC Hero and Friend Richard Tucker and his wife Carrie make their home in Lake Wylie, South Carolina , but their travels still often bring them to Tyler.