Dick Schuitheis

Dick Schuitheis, longtime Grant County lawyer and rancher, passed away peacefully at his home in Ephrata on March 18, 2008.

Richard Edwin Schultheis was born in Bremerton, Wash., on Sept. 30, 1929, to Russell and Marybeth (Jerauld) Schultheis. He graduated from Bremerton High School in 1947, serving as Master Councilor for the Bremerton Chapter of DeMolay, receiving both the Degree of Chevalier and the Legion of Honor awards.

Dick's love of the outdoors grew out of annual bird hunting trips to Eastern Washington and South Dakota with his parents. He also enjoyed mountain climbing and hiking throughout the Olympic Mountains. He was an avid skier and a charter member of the Bremerton Ski Cruisers.

After graduating from Olympic Junior College, Dick worked as a civilian messman on a Navy tug plowing the waters off Alaska. When the cook became sick and could not continue, Dick went ashore, bought a cookbook and for the next 15 months cooked for a crew of 18. The earnings from his short-lived career as a chef financed his continued education at the University of Washington law school from which he graduated in 1953.

In 1952 Dick married Nora Collins of Bremerton, with whom he raised two children, Christine and Steven.

Dick began his 54-year practice of law in Silverdale. A few years later he and James Maddock founded the respected Port Orchard law firm of Schultheis and Maddock. The firm was expanded to include H. C. Sutton, retired judge. His nearly quarter century of legal practice and public service in Kitsap County included a term as president of the Kitsap County Bar Association, charter president of the Silverdale Rotary Club, and commissioner for the Port of Bremerton (1961-1968) during which time the Port Orchard Marina was built.

One of the projects to which Dick was most committed during his years in Port Orchard was not successful, but illustrates his generosity and dedication to public service. In the 1960s Dick spent more than a year of nearly full-time unpaid effort organizing a local hospital district to build a desperately needed hospital in South Kitsap County. At his suggestion Dick and his partner, James Maddock, donated land with the provision that ownership would revert to them if no hospital was built on the property. Again at Dick's urging, when the project was ultimately defeated, rather than taking the property back, they gave it to the community to cover some of the losses incurred in the effort. The fact that Dick did not like to talk about any of this, speaks volumes about a man who sought to do what he felt was right without seeking acclaim.

In 1975 Dick married Kathy Howe, of Port Orchard. Pursuing his love of farming and ranching, they moved to the Royal Slope area, where he raised alfalfa and cattle.

Dick was a loving father to Kathy's daughter, Taffy Courteau, as well as three additional children: Heidi, Amy and Eric.

In 1976 Dick began practicing law in Grant County, where he founded the firm eventually known as Schultheis Tabler and Wallace. He and his family moved to Ephrata in 1986.

In addition to his distinguished legal career, Dick was a past president of the Columbia Basin Hospital Foundation and served on its board of directors for many years.

Dick was an avid collector of Native American art. During a business trip to the Southwest in the early 1990s Dick and Kathy discovered Indian markets where artists sell directly to the public. This was the moment when Dick finally grasped Kathy's enthusiasm for shopping and absorbed it as his own. For years they returned to Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah buying the pots, rug, carvings, and southwest art that decorate his office and home. He became an art auction buff and a fixture at the annual western art auction in Ellensburg, particularly during the years that Kathy served on the board of the Western Art Association.

Dick will be remembered as intelligent, hard-working, and honorable by his friends and colleagues; as loving and dependable by his family; and as a gentleman of the highest order by all.

Survivors include wife Kathy, and children Christine Hotmgren (Mark) Bainbridge Island, Steven Schuitheis (Ulana) Port Angeles, Taffy Jackson (Marc) Moses Lake, Heidi Schultheis, Ephrata, Amy Young, Flagstaff, Ariz., and Eric Schultheis, Seattle, his grandchildren Noah, Moses and Rachel Holmgren and Logan Schultheis, sister, Geraldine (Aziza) McMillan, Ariz., brother-in-law and friend Scott Howe, Sumner, sister-in-law Judy Howe, Port Orchard, aunt Frances Van Otegham-Scott, Seattle, aunt Charlotte Fisher of New Jersey. Surviving niece and nephews are Shawn, Kelly and Tina Ultican and Rick, Mark and Jeff O'Sammon.

Please join the family to celebrate Dick's life at an open house at the family home, 810 D Street Southwest, Ephrata, between 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, March 29. A Richard E. Schultheis Memorial Fund has been established with the Smile Train charitable organization (www.SmileTrain.org).