Richard Lee McAuley was born on December 15th, 1945 in Denver, Colorado. He was adopted at a few days old by W. D. "Don" and Gladys O. McAuley who were living 16 miles south of Vona where Don's dad had homestead in 1910. The family lived there until 1949 when Don and Gladys sold out and bought a place south of Halltown, Missouri to be near his two sisters. They moved back to Colorado because Dick and Gladys were always sick in Missouri, so they moved to Flagler so Gladys could take care of her sick mother. Don sold the farm and then moved back to be with the family. So, Dick went to the first grade in Flagler at the age of 5. He was there and at the site, when the big plane crash happened and when the school house burnt down at the North end of main street. Dick and Stevie Burgess got in lots of trouble when their dads found them on their tricycles watching the school burn down. 

Don & Gladys bought a place Northwest of Seibert and Dick went to school in Seibert, beginning there in 1952 in the second grade. Dick continued there and graduated in 1963. He played baseball, basketball, & football. He turned down a basketball scholarship to Western state so he could get to work. After graduation, he worked for a year for farmers and at Ward Chew's filling station repairing tire flats, mounting new tires, and servicing people getting gas. He also worked for a housing contractor in Colorado Springs, running a little Cat, landscaping around new houses. A year and a half after graduating from high school, he decided to go to College at Western state. After College in Gunnison, graduating in 1968, his college deferment was up so he signed up with the Army. During this time, he married Chyrl Clapper of Vona, Colorado and in 1969 Lance Lee McAuley was born. His number was first on the draft. They sent him to Mannheim, Germany and was a funding and accounting clerk "bookkeeper" for supply in a headquarters department of the 37th Transportation Group in Mannheim Germany. During this time another son was born, in Heidelberg Germany, Eric Matthew McAuley 1970. Dick’s love for his country and that beautiful American Flag could go unmatched. When Dick returned to the U.S.A. he came back to Colorado and went to work for Peter Kiewit driving an asphalt truck, the same entity he had worked for to get through college. 

Growing weary of wandering around, Dick decided to come home, so he applied for the bookkeeping job at the Seibert Equity Co-op. He worked there for a year or so and then went to work for Alvin Kasten doing a little farming and a feeding Coors Cattle, north of Vona & Seibert, Colorado. He said the best thing about going to get pellets at Coors in Golden, Colorado was the smell there, it smelled just like bread baking. During this time Dick and Chyrl divorced and Dick had gone to work for the Stratton Equity Co-op. He decided, that starting over, he needed to go back to construction to get ahead and so was employed by Schmidt Construction Co. Dick met Linda and Kurt in January of 1974 and they were married December 8, 1974 at the Congregational Church in Arriba Co, soon after adopting Kurt as his own. To him she was Blondie and that name stuck by him and most everyone else who worked alongside them. Then they moved to Denver when he went to work for Crossings Inc. in Denver, working with Ralph Gorton, a former Seibert graduate. Ralph graduated in 1964 one year after Dick. They were doing horizontal boring and tunneling. They would put a tube both large or small under the Platte River or an Interstate with a service road beside. Denver was driving Dick nuts and he decided to come home to starve or not, as long as he could get out of Denver. He got on at J&M Steel in Burlington and soon was erecting grain legs with Steve Miller, of Vona. When J&M went out of business, the opportunity to apply for a Colorado State Highway employee at Seibert became available and he got on there. Soon, he was working for farmers, in the evenings and weekends, fixing their broken-down field equipment. This business grew until he needed help, so he called Clint Jones to see if he wanted to go in to partnership. Clint said yes, and they bought the old round top from Cliff Mason at Highway 59 & 24 in Seibert, to work out of, in 1982. Dick had to quit the State to help Clint who was being kept pretty busy. After a couple years Clint decided he wanted to move on, so Dick bought him out. Dick then decided to start stocking a fair variety of steel shapes after working in the field for farmers with their broken equipment and he could never find the piece he was looking for. He would end up going clear to Denver to find the correct size or a junk yard. The idea behind having a large selection, was to have a place where someone could get the exact thing they needed, and not have to pay a fortune for it. While working at Steel Corner Dick lost his son Lance McAuley in 1989 in a vehicle accident which as anyone who’s lost a child knows how hard that could be.  In 1990 we bought the corner lots at highway 59 and 24 and set fire to all the old buildings and then cleaned the lots up with the help of friends who came with truck and heavy equipment, by the end of the day the lots were all cleaned as if nothing had been there. We then built the present-day Steel Corner, and the company continued to grow and we just kept on expanding and buying more ground to build on. It became Steel Corner Inc. with Richard L. McAuley and Linda A. McAuley the shareholders in 2006 and has grown quite a lot since then. It was more than Dick could imagine that a business like this in a small town could get so big. Now stocking a large inventory with most shapes and mechanical tube, rebar, and purlin, welding supplies, steel siding, bale beds and lots of other item supplying a lot of welding shops, stocking resellers, and large construction companies. Delivering all over. Always striving to buy the best is what helped with the selling price. Never with the intent to get wealthy, but to give the best deal possible to the customer. He enjoyed working with his customers and venders to always find what they needed. To help make this business grow to what it has become is with the dedicated employees he has had over the years he has Char Bancroft as manager and Jack Linnebur the shop foreman, who have worked there over 20 years each. Larry Matschke worked for Dick for many years until tragedy struck and Larry was killed in a pickup accident. He started to work for Dick when he was in high school. The crew now is very good and always with the idea of customers first.

Dick always loved his cattle whether it was a herd of steers or cow/calf pairs, he’d go out and talk to them and had names for a lot of them. It was hard when he sold out. Dick’s other passion was water skiing and he enjoyed it to the fullest. He always wanted to teach someone to ski and that was a lot of them, from his grandkids, kids and everyone who got on his boat. We skied a lot with Ralph and Donna Gorton at Bonny Dam and took yearly trips with Scot and Nancy Kohler for over 35 years visiting different lakes. Every summer Dick and Blondie were out traveling with friends and family to spend some time in the sun, which to Dick was the best form of vitamins. He had a soft spot for three special little girls who stole his heart and they made him mighty happy and blessed that they loved him back. Thank you, Heidi McAuley, Fallon Levin and Sarah Miller.

 Dick was very community minded and he loved his home town of Seibert. Participating in most functions going on. The people were so important to him. He did a lot for the older ladies in town, helping fix hot water heaters, starting cars, shoveling snow, even changing light bulbs. He was always there to help; all you had to do was ask and sometimes you didn’t even need to ask he was just there. Anyone who knew him also knew that he was a fun-loving prankster who would get you when you least expected it, and probably had a nickname for many. Dick and the Steel Corner crew erected the Welcome to Seibert sign that sits just south of Steel Corner. Dick was a go getter and a very hard worker he always had something to do, but his Church and his belief in our Savior Jesus Christ was his top priority. He always said if it wasn’t for Jesus and his mother’s prayers all these years, he would not have gotten where he was in life. He was very blessed and thankful. The last two years were really hard on him when his health started to fail and he was not able to work like he wanted to. He missed the people and venders he worked with every day, and his friends and family. With that belief we know he is rejoicing with Jesus in his happy healthy body now, doing his best little dancing jigs.

Dick is survived by his wife Linda of 51 years, son Eric McAuley, son Kurt (Michelle), grandson Tyler and granddaughter Heidi (Cody) Smith, and great granddaughters Adley, Laney and Sloane. He is preceded in death by his parents Don and Gladys, son Lance, and in-laws Lewis and Theresea Copley, sister-in-law Georgia Perry.

In Lieu of Flowers Memorial Contributions may be made to the following or a charity of your choosing:

• Young America Foundation 11480 Commerce Park Drive 6th Floor Reston, VA 20191
• Seibert Community Church PO Box 76 Seibert, CO 80834

Arrangements are under the direction of Brown Funeral Home.