Southern Legacy: Richard Franklin Beppler (1949-1976)

Richard Franklin Beppler was born on 21 August 1949 in Lancaster, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He died on 7 February 1976 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Richard Franklin Beppler

Richard Beppler's veteran grave registration

Intelligencer Journal, 9 February 1976
Richard F. Beppler, 26, a former Penn Manor High School basketball star and honor student, was found dead Saturday morning in an apartment at 308 W. James St.
City police said Beppler apparently committed suicide by cutting himself with a circular power saw.
Beppler was a student at Swarthmore College until last December. He was working at Gino's Restaurant on Columbia Avenue at the time of his death.
He had been sharing the second-floor apartment with his brother for the last two weeks. Prior to that he resided at 2007 Stone Mill Road.
Beppler graduated from Penn Manor in 1967. He entered Swarthmore in the Fall of that year and in his first varsity basketball game against Franklin and Marshall College here he scored 28 points.
While at Penn Manor, Beppler was a unanimous choice on the New Era's All-Star county basketball team. He also was vice president of the senior class, vice president of the National Honor Society and president of the Key Club.
Beppler was an A student at Penn Manor.
Robert Beppler, the victim's brother, discovered the body about 9:10 a.m. Saturday in the apartment and immediately called police. Dr. Arch K. Meserole, a deputy coroner, pronounced the victim dead at the scene.
Police were told Beppler had been despondent the last several weeks. Police found no sign of any struggle or foul play at the scene.
Beppler reportedly had been under a physician's care and was consulting a minister.
Born in Lancaster, he was the son of Catherine Hess Beppler Frimd and the late Robert S. Beppler, who died in 1961.
He was a member of First Reformed Church, Lancaster.
He served four years in the Navy before re-enrollling at Swarthmore. He would have graduated in June.
In addition to his mother, he is survived by a stepfather, G. William Frimd; his maternal grandfather, Frank B. Hess, Lancaster; two brothers, Robert S. Beppler Jr., with whom he resided, and William H. Beppler, Somers Point, N. J.; a stepbrother, G. William Frimd Jr., Lancaster, and a stepsister, Phyllis E., wife of Robert E. Sanders, Des Moines, Iowa.