Richard Partlow

He and older brother, Jamie, attended amid graduated from Downingtown High School, Richard in 1966. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, 80 miles west of Philadelphis, was idyllic for Richard. No young child or teenager could wish for any greater experience. Friendships were forged that exist to this day. Football, track, gymnastics and swimming took up a lot of his time. But the four seasons of the year held so much more. Summer was rope swings over the swimming hole, a three acre honeysuckle canopied pine forest as his private domain, and a one half acre asparagus patch as his summer cash cow when sold to the local farmers market. Fall was sports, riding horses and roaming the forest.

Richard (Rick) Partlow was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1948, the youngest of two boys, to Mr and Mrs. James E. Partlow.

His Mother, Norma Jane VanDervort, born in 1921, a graduate of Ohio University, was an artist, singer, poet, lyricist, author (under Norma Kalina) and reporter. His Father, James Edwin Partlow, a graduate of North Carolina State University, was a corporate businessman and served as a Captain during World War II in the Army Signal Corps, Intelligence Division. One year after his birth the family moved to Oakland, California and the at age three to Houston, Texas where Richard was introduced to swimming, boating, water skiing, crabbing and Saturday Morning Serials at the movies like Buck Rogers and Commander Cody. That is where his imagination took root. At age 9 the family moved to Pennsylvania. His parents bought a modest farm house on ten acres a few miles from the village of Chester Springs where Richard attended fifth and sixth grades in a two room school house. Richard graduated at the top of his class of five students.