He suffered a brain injury after slipping in the driveway and spent several days in the hospital where he received excellent care. Richard passed away peacefully at home surrounded by his family.
Richard was born in Lehi, Utah on December 12, 1935 to Ferren and Zora Sager, the second of their five children. He often told stories of a happy childhood growing up on 8th West in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Richard attended South High School where he played baseball, sang in the a capella choir, and participated in student government. After graduating in 1954, he enrolled in the NROTC before entering university. Richard studied sociology at the University of Utah. Upon graduation, he received a commission in the US Navy.
When he was home on leave for Christmas in 1959, Richard met his future wife Lois at a family gathering in Alpine, Utah. They were married in the Salt Lake Temple on August 10, 1960.
Following Richard’s service in the navy, he attended the University of Utah Law School where he acted as editor-in-chief of the law review. He graduated Order of the Coif in 1964 and accepted a job with O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles. In 1966, Richard, Lois, and their young family moved back to Salt Lake where Richard practiced for one year with Marr, Wilkins & Cannon, and then began a 26-year career with Van Cott, Bagley, Cornwall & McCarthy where he specialized in natural resource law. Richard retired in 1993 when he and Lois accepted their first of many mission calls.
Richard and Lois served as mission presidents in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission from 1993 to 1996 and the Illinois Nauvoo Mission from 1999 to 2002. They also served a mission in Sydney, Australia from 2004 to 2005, where Richard acted as Associate International Legal Counsel for the church. From 2007 to 2010, they served as the Temple President and Matron in the Nashville Tennessee Temple.
Richard was a life-long devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and enjoyed serving in many callings, including bishop of the Valley View 9th Ward and in the Stake Presidency of the Holladay North Stake. Whatever he was asked to do, he did willingly, and taught his children that they should always accept and welcome any opportunity to serve.
Richard loved travel and provided many opportunities for his family to travel together. His children remember spending their summers journeying across the United States to wherever the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation was holding their annual meetings. In their retirement years, Richard and Lois gathered the family for epic visits to Israel and Portugal. Richard made special trips with many of his children and grandchildren to Cooperstown where he shared with them his life-long love of baseball.
If there was a Bees baseball game, a Utah Jazz basketball game, a University of Utah football game, or any Olympus High School sporting event, Richard was there. He especially loved supporting his grandkids and the neighborhood youth in their athletic activities.
Richard also loved supporting his own five children in whatever they loved to do, whether it was sports, music, or education. He was generous with his time and his resources to provide opportunities for those he loved.
Richard was a merit badge counselor for the Boy Scouts of America; any merit badge anyone was working on became a hobby for Richard. It was through the merit badge program that Richard grew to love stamp collecting, photography, fishing, coin collecting, and leatherwork. The missionaries who served with Richard have evidence of his love and affinity for leatherwork. Richard made hundreds of key fobs and bookmarks as remembrances for his missionaries.
If you were to ask anyone who loved Richard what they will always remember and treasure about him, they would say his ability to create traditions, his sense of humor, his reverence and respect for sacred things, his willingness to play and wrestle with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and his love and devotion to his wife and family.
Richard will be missed by all who were blessed to know him. If you knew Richard, you were automatically family to him.
He is survived by his wife, Lois Johnson Sager, his children, Jeannee (LaRon) Stevens, Kathy (Warren) Barnes, Richard Kenneth (Sherri) Sager, Andy (Debi) Sager, Matt (Shannon) Sager, and his siblings Sidney (Anita) Sager, Sharon (Daniel) Boskovich, and John (Anne) Sager. He will be loved and remembered by all of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Richard is preceded in death by his sister Jeannine (Bill) Romine and his parents.
Funeral services will be held on Saturday, January 25 at 2:00 pm at the 1925 E. Gunderson Lane Chapel. Viewings will be Friday, January 24 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm at Wasatch Lawn Memorial Chapel and Saturday at 1:00 pm prior to the funeral. All friends and family are invited to attend a celebration of his life that evening at the Gunderson Lane Chapel at 5:00 pm wearing their favorite baseball hat.
