[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 141 (Friday, September 2, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E895]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              REMEMBERING THE LIFE OF DR. RICHARD RUSSELL

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                            HON. TRENT KELLY

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 2, 2022

  Mr. KELLY of Mississippi. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the 
life of Dr. Richard Russell. Dr. Richard H. Russell died on August 28, 
2022. He was born on May 3, 1942 in his family home in the Hurricane 
Community in Pontotoc County. He was the youngest child born to Robert 
Kendall Russell and Ida Warren Russell, who were 63 and 42 respectively 
on the date of his birth. He had nine siblings whom he knew and two who 
died before his birth. He survived all of them. He leaves his wife, 
Jackie Bass Russell, three children, Regan Russell (Mary Jennifer); 
Sandy Sullivan (Vic) and Melissa Russell, and four grandchildren, 
Sylvie Russell, Will Sullivan, George Sullivan and Paige Carruth.
  Dr. Russell graduated valedictorian from the Hurricane school system 
in 1960, top of his class at the University of Mississippi School of 
Pharmacy in 1965, and in 1971 from the University of Mississippi 
Medical School in Jackson, where he simultaneously worked as a part-
time pharmacist and taught pharmacology to nursing students at St. 
Dominic Hospital. He served a one-year internship in Savannah, Georgia, 
where a staff physician called the Mississippi doctors (including Dr. 
Sam Creekmore) the best interns they had ever had, before choosing New 
Albany as his forever home. He never thereafter doubted that he had 
made a wise choice.
  At the Union County Hospital, later Baptist Memorial-Union County, he 
proudly delivered approximately 2,000 babies, co-ran the emergency room 
night and day for seven years, served as New Albany's first I.C.U. 
Director, served three terms as Chief of Staff, and played an 
instrumental role in convincing Baptist to take over the Union County 
Hospital. He was very proud that the New Albany Medical Community grew 
from five doctors the day before he and Dr. Creekmore arrived to a 
thriving local medical community with a hospital recently voted the 
Best Small Hospital in the State of Mississippi. He also served his 
community in various ways, including as the Union County Republican 
Chairman and on the New Albany School Board.
  Richard was born into a rich community where he was surrounded by 
family and friends, and he carried a love of community all through his 
life. During his thirty-nine years of practice as a Family Practice 
Physician in New Albany, Verona and at the University of Mississippi, 
he rarely passed a day without meeting someone he called a cousin, and 
he never went a day without meeting someone he called friend. He was 
loved by many of his patients because of his fondness for them, his 
familiarity with their families and family histories, and his gentle 
and friendly spirit. A pharmaceutical salesman once added that you 
could always count of Dr. Russell to tell you ``one good joke--and two 
bad ones''.
  In his later years Dr. Russell often reflected upon how lucky he had 
been to know so many people, to serve them and their families, 
particularly in their times of deepest need, many times to sit with 
them in their last moments, and to enjoy his patients' frequent 
expressions of appreciation and affection for him. Madam Speaker, Dr. 
Russell will be missed.

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