Richard L. Cassell (1944-2025)

On December 24, 2025, one of the original members of KNPS, Richard L. Cassell, died at his home in Louisville.

Remembrances of Richard Cassell
by Barry Howard

Richard was a longtime friend, outstanding naturalist and great American. I first met Richard in the spring of 1979 shortly after becoming the park naturalist at Pine Mountain State Resort Park. We spent a lot of time together throughout much of the 1980s, both in the field and with various endeavors associated with the Kentucky Society of Natural History (KSNH) in which we were both heavily involved. These were days before the Kentucky Native Plant Society (KNPS) had been formed and thus “the Society” as we used to call KSNH, attracted amateur botanists as well as other naturalists interested in all aspects of Kentucky natural history. Some of my early memories include Richard showing up at the park with a rough, hand-drawn map to a rare plant location in northeast Tennessee. After some searching and poking around we found it. Clumps of large, gorgeous orchids, Cypripedium reginae (showy ladies-slipper) A similar experience occurred when Richard arrived with notes to a Cypripedium kentuckiense site near Corbin. (I believe the former site is now protected by The Nature Conservancy, while the latter is gone.)

Although Richard was keenly interested in all aspects of Kentucky natural history, he had a particular fondness for plants. He was a founding board member of the KNPS in 1986. He used to travel all over Kentucky and the southern Appalachians to study plants, especially rare ones. If he knew where he might see a rare plant, it was nothing for him to get in the car after he got off work on Friday evening and travel 6 or more hours to meet a botanist or go on a field trip so that he could see and photograph a single species. He did this over and over again.

Richard was well-acquainted with both professional and amateur botanists throughout the southeast. There was something about his personality that endeared him to people. Those who did not know him well would probably see him as quiet and somewhat reserved, but his genuineness and deep interest in the natural world would inevitably charm you. That’s probably what happened when he met A J Sharp, the famed University of Tennessee botanist. Sharp’s wife ended up inviting him home to spend the night. (Richard had a way of charming the ladies!)

In fact, Richard knew lots of people and knew them very well. If you were a person, professional or amateur, who had knowledge of just about any aspect of natural history you were a target for Richard to meet. He would go to a conference or meeting where you were presenting or expected to be at, or maybe a field trip you were leading, and he would go there and get to know you. And he did this repeatedly over a long period of time.

One of the many ways I will miss Richard is that he was one of my last links to some of the great naturalists active 50 and more years ago. People like Roger Barbour, Mary Wharton, Max Medley, E J Carr and so many others.

Richard was not trained academically and learned what he knew largely by seeking out experts in various fields but also by serious pursuit of books and literature. He subscribed to various academic journals, joined professional organizations and accumulated an enormous collection of books, some that are today quite rare, and many of which he had signed by their authors.

After the early years Richard and I were only in sporadic contact— up until about 2011 when we reconnected and spent a lot of time together traveling all over the place. Two trips to Canada, classes at the Highlands Biological Station, trips to the Smoky Mountains for park natural history seminars, wildflower weekends, etc.

Traveling up to 6 -10 hours on a road trip, there were brief, fleeting moments when Richard would share snippets and tidbits about his life as a young adult, before he was consumed by his love of natural history. Many of Richard’s friends know that he began his journey into adulthood in Vietnam. Something that if he every mentioned at all, was never done so in depth. Anyone who was not there can never know what that must have been like, but I heard just enough to know that it had to be one of the most profound life-altering experiences a person could possibly have.

Richard was a young man, only a few years out of high school when he began what he described to me as a step by step journey into hell. He was having the time of his life. Fast cars, motorcycles, chasing women. He had the world by the tail. And then he received his draft notice. Step one down to hell. Off to basic training. Step two. Then by plane to Vietnam. Step three. Off the plane and into a truck filled with troops. Step four. And why was there a chained link fence over and around the back of the transport where the troops were located? To protect them from somebody throwing a grenade on them. And it kept getting worse.

All wars are hell. But Vietnam was its own perverted kind of hell. You were there to fight an enemy, the North Vietnamese, but also mixed in with the South Vietnamese population were the Viet Cong, unrecognizable but out to kill you if they got a chance.

Vietnam was the last American conflict that relied on forcibly conscripted troops to fight it. It was in large part fought by working class Americans like Richard while many from the wealthier classes found ways to get deferments.

Typical of Richard’s luck occurred when USO entertainment came to give the troops at least somewhat of a mental break. But somebody had to protect a large gathering of soldiers. So no USO show for Richard and his buddies. They had to face outward, constantly looking for danger.

Richard told me that the one thing he was certain of while in Vietnam was that he would never come home alive. He also said that if we ever visited Washington, DC, which we once contemplated, he wanted to go to the Vietnam Memorial but that he would have to visit it alone- hinting that the emotional toil on him would be immense.

Fortunately Richard did indeed get to come home— but with PTSD (for Vietnam Vets, what is now known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was often triggered by “the nature of guerrilla warfare, difficulty distinguishing friend from foe, and witnessing horrific events like friends’ deaths”) When discharged from the military he was told essentially (in vulgar language) to “suck it up, soldier”. There were many soldiers like Richard who never really recovered.

As a result of these intense, horrific experiences in Vietnam, I do think there was sort of a tinge of angst in Richard’s personality that never went entirely away. But it was overlain by the solace of nature, which let him live a genuinely happy life.

Richard was indeed a unique individual. I have never met anyone remotely like him. Like all of us he was flawed in some ways, but noble in so many others.

If you were fortunate enough to spend time with Richard you were lucky. And I have been around him enough in later years to say that if you showed him or shared with him a plant, a salamander, a bird, a bug or any other aspect of our great natural world— he was grateful more than you will ever know.

So long good buddy. Peace be with you.

Obituary