Richard Gentry

GENTRY, Richard Armstrong "Dick"

Richard Armstrong "Dick" Gentry passed on March 5, 2024. He was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, April 20, 1937, to Mary Elizabeth (Smith) and Ralph Dunbar Gentry.

Gentry graduated from Tupelo High School in 1955, joined the U.S. Marine Corps and completed boot camp at Parris Island, North Carolina. His first tour of duty was aboard the aircraft carrier USS Randolph as part of a USMC detachment. The final tour in his four-year service commitment was as a clerk at Cherry Point, North Carolina. He received his bachelor's degree in communications at Washington State University, Pullman, Washington.

Gentry is survived by his wife of 64 years, Martha Ann (Cook) Gentry; children, Leigh Alison Richter (Richard) and Richard Stephen Gentry; four grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and his brother, Roy Stephen Gentry, Starkville, Mississippi.

In September 1962, Gentry witnessed the riot at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) when James Meredith enrolled as a student. Gentry, then summer editor of the Ole Miss newspaper, The Mississippian (Oxford, Mississippi), later wrote an account of the riot in the book "Under Fire at Ole Miss" published in 2014.

A commitment to objective reporting led Gentry throughout his career as journalist at the Atlanta (Georgia) Business Journal, the San Diego (California) Business Journal, the Hawaii Business Publishing Corporation, and the Birmingham (Alabama) Business Magazine. He started his career in journalism at the Artesia (New Mexico) Weekly News as a sportswriter and ended his work there as its editor. He also worked for publications the Spokane (Washington) Chronicle and the Ocala (Florida) Star Banner. In the early 1970s he was editor and publisher of the Caymanian Weekly (Cayman Islands, BWI). His book, "At the Foot of the Southern Cross" (2009) recounted his time in Grand Cayman and the history of the Cayman Islands as an offshore tax haven. In his 30-plus years as an editor and journalist, Gentry accumulated multiple awards which cited excellence in human interest reporting, spot news reporting, feature writing, and as an entertaining columnist.

Gentry's family recall Dick's life as one spent engaged in support of each of them, his commitment to excellence in his field of endeavor and his shared zest for life with the people he knew and loved. He died surrounded by children, grandchildren and one great-grandchild at his home in Tiger, Georgia. Plans for services are pending.