Richard Amherst Hayden entered eternity to be with the Lord Thursday morning, December 29, 2022, after a long illness.

Richard was the third son of C.C. and Hazel Orcutt Hayden.  Born in Wooster, Ohio he and his brothers Edgar and John Hayden grew up in the Wooster Methodist Church and attended Wooster High School.  Richard was the class President of the Class of 1946 after running as the “guy with the gold tooth”.  Richard had a mischievous streak; he was caught distributing his home printed underground newspaper called “Escorn”.  He and a large group of high school classmates enlisted in the Navy in 1947 and was stationed in California and in the Pacific for a time.

After he spent a year at College of Wooster, he transferred to Ohio State and earned his Bachelors and ultimately a PhD degree in Horticulture in 1956.  During school he built concrete stave silos in northeast Ohio where he walked along the very narrow concrete blocks while building these tall structures.

He met Helen LaVonne Metcalf in 1954 at a square dance near Wooster and they were married in 1955.

Immediately after graduation, Richard and Helen moved to Griffin, Georgia where he took a position at the University of Georgia Experiment Station where he concentrated on peach research.  During their time there in Georgia, they had four children: Richard Clay, Mary Louise, Patricia Evelyn, and William Edgar.  Richard and Helen were active in the Griffin First Methodist Church as Sunday school teachers and youth group counselors.

In 1966, the Hayden family moved to Lafayette where Richard took a position at Purdue University as the Horticultural Extension Agent.  He concentrated on improving apple varieties and production techniques for the Indiana fruit growers.  He spent many weeks each spring conducting many hands-on seminars for fruit growers.

In 1967, they bought 20 acres northwest of Purdue where they built a home and production fruit farm.  They transformed an open bean field into a vibrant and diverse landscape where their kids were raised.

He was one of the founding members of the newly formed Wabash Township Volunteer Fire Department and spent nearly 20 years serving the Township.

Richard and Helen started Hayden’s Berry Patch, a pick-your-own strawberry farm, where their children learned the agricultural and business side of life. The family created many very fond memories of their experiences taking care of the multiple acres of strawberries.  The rest of the farm was planted with trees and a pond was created to provide irrigation water for the strawberries. Richard maintained an orchard where more than 30 varieties of apples were collected and grown.

Richard and Helen were one of the founding members of St. Andrew United Methodist Church which originally met in the Soller-Baker Funeral home.  With the merger with the EUB Church, the church moved to the Meridian Street Church and eventually to the current church building.  As his parents did before him, Richard served on a wide variety of positions in the church.

Richard and Helen are the blessed grandparents of Emily, Abby, Spencer, Katherine, Hunter, Casey and Zachary as well as great-grandparents of Zoe and Brooklyn.

Visitation will be from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm on Friday at Soller-Baker West Lafayette Chapel, 1184 Sagamore Parkway West.  Service will be 10:30 am on Saturday at St. Andrew United Methodist Church.  Interment will be at Tippecanoe Memory Gardens.