Richard Gregg Sheehan

After primary schooling in Denver, he attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts where he was awarded a full academic scholarship. He obtained a degree in Biology in 1957. He was a Tyng Scholar and a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Society (Honorary Medical Society). He was a member of the Chi Psi Fraternity and played on their Intramural Ice Hockey Team as a goalie. In the summers he spent time in Cape Cod as a coach for the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League and tutored the players in Algebra.

He went to Cornell Medical School in New York where he obtained his MD degree in 1961. He did his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at New England Center Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He also attended the MIT Graduate School of Biology and was a Research Fellow at Tufts University Medical School where he did a traineeship in Hematology at the Blood Research Laboratory.

In 1965 and 1967 he served two years in the Army at Brooke Army Medical Hospital at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas where he was the Chief of the Clinical Hematology Section.

He was recruited in 1967 to Dallas to develop and lead the Hematology Oncology Department at the Dallas Veterans Administration Hospital where he served until his retirement in 1999. He was also the Assistant Chief of the Nuclear Medicine Service of the VA.

He was a Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School from 1967 – 1999. He trained several of the doctors who went on to treat him in their specialties as he became ill. They told wonderful stories of how tough of an educator he was but it enabled them to become the doctors they are today and be the best in their specialties.

He compiled more than 37 publications in Hematology while doing research, which he loved, along with teaching and treating patients.

Besides being an intellect, he was an avid lover of sports. He was the catcher on the State Championship Team in baseball in high school in the American Legion. He was in the Denver newspaper as he hit the game winning home run.

He was a single digit handicap golfer and thoroughly enjoyed the game with Laurie and his golf buddies, being one of the early members at Brookhaven Country Club. He and Laurie watched the Golf Channel together every week.

Dick loved football and the Dallas Cowboys and had season tickets at The Cotton Bowl and Texas Stadium. He was also an avid member of a fantasy football league and using his unnatural focus each season he would spend countless hours researching players and aggregating data to produce and develop statistical models consistently winning the league.

With a love for international brewing, he had a spectacular import beer collection, with countless unique, unopened bottles filling an entire room. He spent many hours at The Flying Saucer with fellow beer lovers. So dedicated, he earned the beer tour award plate multiple times and had the plates placed directly above his favorite stool at the end of the bar.

He formed very special bonds with the bartenders and servers who loved him like a father and grandfather.

Up until his final days he continued his lifelong interest in learning, taking online college courses in diverse subjects ranging from art, great orchestral works, law school, meteorology and the Higgs Boson and Beyond. His mind was as brilliant as it ever had been. He had a huge library of the courses totaling around 75.

The most important people in Dick’s life were his family. Diane, his wife, who passed in 2005, was the love of his life. He had 2 daughters, Cathy and Laurie who were the apples of his eye. Cathy passed away in an automobile accident in 1985, which was devastating to him. Grampy loved and adored his grandchildren, Jack Bateman III, Cathy Bateman, and Hillary Bateman. They meant everything to him.

He loved his sisters Patti Keyworth and Cindy Hightower tremendously.

Our family wishes to thank Dr. Allan Shulkin and Dr. Jodie Hurwitz who took tremendous care of him throughout the years.

We will be holding a celebration of Dick’s life at the DFW National Cemetery with a date to be determined.

Please send any donations to the Ronald McDonald House.