Richard LaBudde

Richard Graydon LaBudde passed on Friday October 23rd 2015 85 years old
Husband, Father, Engineer, Friend to many.
Born in 1929 on Beethoven's birthday (He was proud of that coincidence) in Rockford Illinois. To O.H. and Agnes LaBudde. He graduated from West Rockford H.S. in 1947 started college and joined the Army in 1951. Went to Camp Gordon Georgia, Ft. Monmouth Radio School, then to White Sands & Albuquerque N.M. Honorably discharged. He married Carolyn in 1953 and they honeymooned in Cuba, pre-Fidel timeframe. Graduated in Packaging Engineering from Michigan State University (Go Spartans) then settled in Pittsburgh working for Alcoa and built his first house. Then in 1959 son Brian came along. They moved to Mansfield Ohio for better opportunity at Westinghouse and Alan came along in 1965. Then it was off to Little Batavia N.Y. and Sylvania for around 10 years. Received a Patent in 1976. Phillips bought Sylvania and was based in Knoxville so off they went again, luckily till retirement just over 20 years ago. Dad loved astronomy, photography, shooting off model rockets, Indian Guides, running an electric boat in a pond or fixing some old broken thing, and playing horseshoes with Alan. His favorite thing was talking to people. He remembered absolutely everyone's name, what they did and where they were from. He didn't believe me when I said I would miss the lectures, but I will. On the whole he was right 99.5% of the time. You will be missed.
Richard was cremated per his wishes and no services are scheduled at this time. Donations can be made to NAMI or UT Medical Center in his name.