Obituary
for Roger W. Heitschmidt
Roger “Red” Heitschmidt, 79, of Chapel Hill,
TN passed away at home on Saturday, December 12, 2020. A family celebration of Roger’s life will be held this coming spring.
Roger was born on December 2, 1941 in
Osborne County Kansas, the first of three children of his parents Harold and
Wilma Heitschmidt. He grew up on a farm
near Covert, KS. He graduated from
Paradise Rural High School, Paradise, KS in 1960 and from Kansas State
University in 1964 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He received his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering
from Wichita State
University in 1968 while working for Boeing in Wichita.
Roger was always interested in
agriculture commodities and as such, he eventually chose to become a commodity
broker. At one time he was the largest
broker for Peavy Co. in the United States.
During this time, he had numerous offices throughout the State of Kansas
with his home office in Wichita. He
eventually moved his business to Nashville, TN.
Shortly thereafter he “retired” from the brokerage business and moved to Charleston, SC where he
opened a retail golf store. He retired
from the golf business in 2010. He and
his wife Joyce then moved to Chapel Hill to be nearer family.
Roger loved to feed and watch the
birds in his yard and match wits against the squirrels and raccoons that
routinely raided the feeders. He also
enjoyed gardening, the outdoors, working on his golf swing, and studying the
latest business trends.
Roger married Karen Hudnall in 1959. Three children were born to this union: Kim, Shelly, and Jerry.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Harold and Wilma, and his daughter Shelly.
He leaves behind his wife Joyce (married in 1995), his daughter Kim Motley and her husband Gregg (Fort Scott, KS), son Jerry anHd wife Nancy (Athens, GA), brother Rod and wife Sue (Granbury, TX), sister Elaine Vanderlaan and her husband Alfred (Watertown, SD), 9 grandchildren, 10 great grandchildren, and a host of relatives, friends and acquaintances.
Roger never knew a stranger. He lived life to the fullest which meant family and friends were of paramount importance to him.
