Born in Augusta on February 12, 1918, Dick Daniel was the son of Nell Elizabeth Nolan and Raleigh Hightower Daniel, who, as a mayor pro-temporary in 1927 recommended the purchase of WW I’s Hancock Field by the city.  It was subsequently named Daniel Field.  Dick Daniel attended ARC in the early 1930s.  He rose to Lieutenant in ROTC and was in the Officers Club.  He played in the golf team in 1931 and 1932 and was a member of the Academy Literary Society from 1931-1933.  In 1933 he graduated, having finished the four-year course in three years.  He then attended the Junior College of Augusta before attending the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, where he graduated in 1938.  After graduation, he was commissioned into the United States Army Reserves and returned home to join his father’s wholesale business, the Daniel Company. 

In World War II, he was a staff officer for the Eighth United States Army, serving as a liaison between the Eighth and various guerilla forces fighting the Japanese in both the Philippines and New Guinea.  He joined Japan with the U.S. occupation forces at the end of the war.  He remained in the Army Reserves until his retirement as a Colonel in 1964.  He worked until 1958 with the Daniel Company, when his father retired and they closed the family business.  At that time, he joined the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, working as a district agent until retirement in 1983.  

Daniel was a committed citizen of the community.  He was a member of the Augusta Exchange Club, including serving as its president.  He was chair of the Richmond County Hospital Authority and was involved in the reorganization of the hospital under University Health Services, Inc.  and served as the first chairman of that board.  He was at the helm of University Hospital when they and St. Josephs Hospital founded and built the Brandon Wilde Continuing Care Retirement Community.  He and his first wife Margaret were among the first residents there and it became his home until his death on October 26, 2018 at over one hundred years old.  He was a long-time member and past chair of the Metro Augusta Chamber of Commerce, and a member and chair of several boards of area financial institutions.  He also served other civic organizations.

Throughout his life, he was a member of First Baptist Church of August, where he served as a deacon and Sunday School teacher as well as chair of the building committee overseeing the move from the downtown location to the new church on Walton Way Extension.  First Baptist named the “T. Richard Daniel Administration Building” in his honor. 

He received numerous awards for his life of service, including the Golden Deeds Award from the Augusta Exchange Club, the Paul Harris Fellow Award from the Rotary Club of Augusta, and the Augusta Museum’s Jimmy Dyess Award for service to the community above and beyond the call of duty.  In 1986 the Augusta Bar Association presented him with the Liberty Bell Award, saying in part, “He is a man of great courage and integrity who has quietly worked with unending persistence to improve our community.”