Stanley Rychlicki - Storyteller, Veteran, Volunteer
By: Maureen McGuire
Updated: October 8, 2012
93-year-old Stanley Rychlicki is a proud veteran of the Army Air Corps. At the airport in Rochester, he's a fixture at the Honor Flight ceremonies, dedicated to his peers who served in World War II. But he's also a mainstay at nursing homes and senior centers.
"I'm not a professional storyteller by a long shot," he says, "but I can get into people real good because I lived it."
After his tour of duty in the Pacific, Stan worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, then moved to New York and spent 35 years as a pipeline inspector for Arco Gas Company. Last month in Mt. Morris, at the Livingston County Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, we caught up with him as he regaled his older audience about his years as a pipewalker.
Some call him Stan the Man, but we call him, a Golden Giver. "I always help old people," Stan says. "Plowing their snow, icing their sidewalks....taking them to hospitals.... I just love to do that.... all my life I was like that."
Stan has won many honors for his service to our country and our community. Now, just shy of his 94th birthday in November, we're pleased to pay tribute, too.
