Nearly every aspect of Dick Fisher’s life has a Capital connection.
Fisher, ’55, met his beloved wife, the late Marilyn “Lyn” Gauggel Fisher, ’54, when he was a football player and she was a cheerleader at Capital University. “My wife and I never would have had a 60-year relationship if I hadn’t been here and she hadn’t been here,” he says.
He was hired for his first job out of the Navy by then-Superintendent of Circleville Schools and Capital Alumnus George Hartman. “I never met the guy,” Fisher recalls. “He hired me sight unseen.”
It helped that two of his friends from Capital were teachers in Circleville and put in a good word for him.
His loyalty to his alma mater began when he was working on his family’s farm outside of his hometown of Hilliard, Ohio. One day in the early 1950s, a car came down the rural road and pulled into his driveway. It was Capital’s football coach, Jack Landrum, who had stopped by to recruit the All-League high school running back.
“I didn’t have a lot of preparation for college,” Fisher recalls. “Fortunately, I got the rest of it here.”
He credits his Capital professors for “their approach to teaching and how they involve you in the learning.” A history major, Fisher would go on to teach American History and American Government for a handful of years before earning a master’s from The Ohio State University in 1961 and working as a school counselor for Circleville High School for 28 more years.
Sports continued to play a part in his life and many Circleville graduates remember him as an assistant football coach and the head baseball coach. Fisher, who also played baseball and ran track at Capital, still keeps in contact with his former Capital teammates. “I’ve made life-long friends from here,” he says.
Though no one was more special than the cheerleader who caught his eye as a sophomore. “She asked me to go to a wiener roast one of her friends was having,” he says, recalling that first date. “She was a wonderful person.”
They were married Dec. 11, 1954. A year later, he was drafted into the U.S. Navy. Lyn would join him at his home port in San Diego before the couple settled down in Circleville. A medical technologist, Lyn returned to Capital’s campus where she earned a Master of Education degree from the University of Dayton. She taught elementary school in the Westfall Local Schools for 17 years.
“So, you see, Cap continued to play an important role even after she finished her initial undergrad program,” Dick Fisher says.
As part of the “In Radiant Splendor Shine” campaign, Fisher has established the Richard & Marilyn Fisher Endowment Fund benefiting the football, baseball, track & field and cheerleading programs. The Fishers have not only supported Cap U, but also Trinity Lutheran Seminary with their gifts through the years.
“I personally have a kind of code: You need to be loyal, not only to family, but also to institutions,” Fisher says. “I feel family loyalty, loyalty to my church, loyalty to the university and loyalty to the schools. If you have a feeling of loyalty, you have to support it.”
The couple are the parents of three: Linda Knicely, Kathryn Green and Brad Fisher, and grandparents of seven.
These days, Dick Fisher stays busy by working in the Trinity Lutheran Church Biblical Garden in Circleville, which was begun by Lyn and another church member, and also volunteers at the Pickaway County Genealogical Library.