Richard L. “Dick” Spangler
Space isn’t available to list all of the individual golfing honors that Dick Spangler won during a career that began in earnest 40-some years ago. But it was a team selection — not an individual achievement — that he still lists among his most satisfying moments.
“When I was in the Air Force in the mid 50’s,” Spangler explains, “qualifying was held at all the bases to pick a five-man all-Air Force team. Miller Barber and I were two of the five to make it. Don January failed to make the cut. So did Joe Conrad, who the year before had won the British Amateur.” In the all-service matches that followed against the Army and Navy teams, the Air Force won by 27 strokes.
While stationed at the Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Spangler won the Mississippi State amateur championship in 1955.
A University of Nebraska Law College graduate, Dick was a three-year letterman for the Cornhuskers. During that time, he was the Lincoln City champion in 1950 and ’51 and also won the Nebraska State amateur title in 1952.
After leaving the Air Force, Spangler added two more Nebraska State championships in 1957 and ’58; and fired a course-record 63 at The Country Club of Lincoln.
A member of the Trans-Mississippi Board of Directors since 1969, Spangler has qualified for the U.S. Amateur championship nine times; and has been a U.S. Senior Amateur qualifier four times. In addition, Spangler is the immediate past president of the Nebraska Golf Hall of Fame.
