Richard Skinner III

SILVER SPRING, Md. — Richard M. Skinner III, 92, formerly of Princeton, died Saturday, May 6, 2017, at his home.

Born Aug. 4, 1924, in Princeton, the son of Richard M. and Ruth (Waddell) Skinner, he married Nancy Elsa Haldi of Highland, Ill., in 1952.

He graduated from Princeton High School in 1942 and was the valedictorian. He then entered Knox College. He was called to active duty in April 1943 and was assigned to the U.S. Army Air Forces and sent to basic training in Miami Beach, Fla. He trained in Pawling, N.Y., as a cryptographer, and served two and a half years in the Central Pacific with 7th Air Force B-24 heavy bomber units on the islands of Kauai, Oahu, Saipan, Guam and Okinawa. He was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant in January 1946 and returned to Knox College that spring. He majored in English. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, in June 1949. That fall he was accepted at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York City and received his Master of Science degree the following June. In September 1950, as an Air Force reservist, he was called to active duty at the start of the Korean War and assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, near Washington, D.C., for one year as a public-information specialist with the Military Air Transport Service. After his discharge, he accepted a job as assistant editor of AIR FORCE Magazine and soon became assistant managing editor and then managing editor and, later, associate publisher, positions he held until his retirement in 1989. He also served as managing dditor for SPACE DIGEST and executive editor for a sister publication, AEROSPACE INTERNATIONAL, and edited several anthologies, among them The Wild Blue and Speaking of Space.

He and his wife joined Bethesda’s Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ in 1952, serving on various boards, and both became longtime members of the chancel choir.

After his retirement from the Air Force Association, he became a volunteer for Meals on Wheels and for District Two of the Montgomery County Police Department, where, at the station in Bethesda, he did data entry and performed various administrative tasks. At Westmoreland Church, he served as the choir’s music librarian for more than a dozen years and in the 1970s and ’80s was also variously a member of the Oratorio Society of Washington, the Cathedral Choral Society, the vocal chamber group Musikanten and the Washington Men’s Camerata.

Surviving are his wife of 65 years, Nancy; three children, Caroline L. Skinner and Nancy W. Skinner, both of Portland, Ore., and Richard M. (Kristina Markstrom-Skinner) Skinner IV of Alexandria, Va.; one granddaughter, Celeste Davis of Portland, Ore.; and one great-granddaughter, Talulah Estelle Davis of Portland, Ore.

He was preceded in death by his sister, Sally Council, and brother, Hugh Skinner, of Princeton.

A memorial service will be held Friday, June 2, in Silver Spring, Md., and his ashes will be interred at Westmoreland church.

Memorial contributions may be sent to the Cathedral Choral Society of Washington.