Richard Reese Elledge, ’61, 1934-2025
Richard Reese Elledge
Richard “Reese” Elledge, a kind, gentle and brilliant man, passed away on the morning of April 25th, 2025, after suffering a severe heart attack the day before.
Reese was born in Painesville, Ohio, on January 8, 1934, the youngest of six children, and his primary and secondary education took place there.
Reese was a true renaissance man; always inquisitive and always learning. Industrious from a young age, Reese had a variety of interesting jobs during his high school summers – he worked on a construction site, in a cafe, in a steel mill office, and particularly enjoyed telling new friends about when he was arrested for selling encyclopedias door – to – door the summer he graduated from high school because he was not carrying the proper license necessary to do such work. The encyclopedia company provided the authorities with the proper paperwork, and nothing more came of the incident. Reese really enjoyed doing that job for the remainder of that summer before moving on that fall to attend Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota as a member of the incoming Class of 1951, graduating in 1955. The four years he spent at Carleton defined him and shaped his future. He was taught and nurtured by very kind people with brilliant minds in a setting which was perfect for him, and he expressed his gratitude for what Carleton gave him by giving back to that institution financially and in many other ways. He rarely missed a class reunion, remaining friends with several classmates throughout the rest of their lives. It was at Carleton where he developed his deep love of choral and classical music, and he became a proud member of the Carleton Men’s Chorus.
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