Richard Loyal Harrison

April 19, 1947 – January 16, 2023

Richard Loyal Harrison began his next great adventure on January 16, 2023 surrounded by his family. Richard was born in North Bend, Oregon on April 19, 1947 to parents, Raymond Albert Harrison and Wilma Hazel Faulkner. He graduated from Marshfield High School in 1966 and attended Oregon Technical Institute.

In 1967, he married his high school sweetheart, Dianne Fischer. Always a person to be on the move, his adventures began.  Travels took them to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and Canada with Dianne. He traveled to Peru, with his son and to Greece with a friend. He traveled twice across country; once in a Volkswagen bus with Dianne and once with his whole family including two parakeets, a cat and a dog pulling a travel trailer for nine months. One adventure took them to Saskatchewan on the border of the Northwest Territories on a 3-day canoe trip on Amish Lake. Other adventures took him on numerous motorcycle trips around the Northwest.

Richard held a variety of jobs: millworker, water truck driver for a logging company, driving taxi, orderly in a surgical ward, custodian in a school. He was a farmer and grew and sold marijuana before it was legal. In Florida, he was an elephant tender for Barnum and Bailey Circus Theme Park. He worked as an intake counselor at Steppingstone Lodge, Eugene. His most important job was helping to raise two children and two grandchildren. Hobbies included singing in the Gold Coast Barbershop Chorus in Coos Bay and Cascade Chorus in Eugene, cars, traveling and collecting.  He will be remembered for his deep love and loyalty to his family, dry sense of humor, and his legacy of adventure. 

He is survived by his partner, Carol Watt; Dianne Harrison, his oldest and dearest friend and mother of his children; children, Jennifer Rae Harrison and Travis Arlan Harrison; grandchildren, Jared Deloyal Harrison and his partner, Lily Parmenter and Leah Paige Harrison; nephew, Jesse Williamson.

Remembrances may be sent to Harrison 1808 Cottonwood, Coos Bay, 97420