Richard Preston Merrill ’42 died on March 19, 2005, in Norcross, Georgia.

Born on December 14, 1919, in Boston, he prepared for college at Norwood (MA) High School and the Huntington School in Boston and became a member of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity at Bowdoin, which he attended from 1938 to 1940. After attending Bryant and Stratton Commercial School in Boston for two years, he served in the U.S. Army Infantry during World War II from 1942 to 1946, attaining the rank of major. With the 2nd Ranger Battalion he took part in the first assault wave of the invasion of Normandy in 1944 and was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart with two Oak Leaf Clusters, as well as the European Theater of Operations Ribbon with Invasion Arrowhead, five Battle Stars and the Combat Infantryman’s Badge. After the war, he was a sales representative with Bird & Son, Inc., before joining the Coca-Cola Bottling Company, where he held a number of positions, as assistant to the president and general manager in Providence, RI, as a district representative in Minneapolis, MN, and as the southern zone military manger in Atlanta, GA. He retired in 1982. He was married in 1942 to Shirley W. Engel, who died in 2002, and is survived by a daughter, Constance M. Weeks of Montana; a son, Dr. Richard P. Merrill, Jr. of  Columbia, MD; a brother, William R. Merrill of Vermont; a sister, Dorothy Merrill of Massachusetts; and three grandchildren.