Richard R. Stacey ’57

Richard R. Stacey ’57, M.D., of Spokane, Washington, died at his home on March 12, 2017. Dick came to Dartmouth from Westfield, New Jersey, high school. He majored in English and was premed. He was a member of the Glee Club all four years and a brother in Sigma Nu. He graduated from Tufts Medical School, completed an internship in Philadelphia and was in the Peace Corps in Turkey. Dr. Stacey moved to Minnesota, where he spent four and half years at the Mayo Clinic, then on to Spokane, where he practiced rheumatology at the Rockwood Clinic for 27 years. He was involved in the pioneering use of the drug methotrexate in treating rheumatoid arthritis. As president of the Spokane County Medical Society he helped devise emergency plans that closed schools and distributed facial masks to the region’s residents when volcanic ash blanketed Spokane after Mount St. Helens’ 1980 eruption. He retired from the Rockwood Clinic in 1991and was honored as “outstanding physician-citizen of the year.” Dr. Stacey was on the boards of Blue Cross, the Spokane Chamber of Commerce and Spokane Symphony and served as chair of the Inland Northwest Community Foundation, where he increased the endowment from $5 million to $35 million. He was president of his local Dartmouth club. He had a passion for the events of the mutiny on the Bounty and visited Pitcairn Island near Tahiti with three friends. He is survived by his wife, Connie, their three children and several grandchildren.