Clinton stepfather, 91, dies in Hot Springs
Posted on Thursday, February 1, 2007
HOT SPRINGS — Richard Kelley, 91, the stepfather of former President Clinton, died Wednesday at his Hot Springs home on Lake Hamilton after a lengthy illness.
A family member at the residence confirmed the death, which occurred about 6 p. m.
“People met him once, he was a friend.... I think they could sense his innate kindness,” said Steve Arrison, executive director of the Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau and a close friend of Kelley and his family.
“It is a great loss for the city of Hot Springs.”
Kelley, born in Kansas, spent his early years in Minnesota. In 1982, he married Clinton’s mother, Virginia Kelley. She died on Jan. 6, 1994, after a lengthy battle with breast cancer.
The couple were avid fans of Oaklawn Park, and Kelley remained a fixture at the track after his wife’s death.
“He was just as comfortable in a receiving line at the White House as he was in the betting line at Oaklawn,” Arrison said.
A room was named in the Kelleys’ honor at the Hot Springs Convention Center in 2004, where Dick Kelley handed out Clinton trading cards, a promotional tool created by the Hot Springs Advertising and Promotion Commission that has brought the city thousands of dollars of free publicity.
Dick Kelley and his brother Al T. Kelley Jr., were partners in Kelley Brokerage Co., a Little Rock food brokerage firm started by their father, Al Kelley Sr., in 1939.
Kelley traveled extensively with Clinton, and the former president usually attended the annual Dick Kelley Golf Classic at the Glenwood Country Club.
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