Rick Musser in Philadelphia accepting the Seward history book award at
American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) Award
Ceremony in Philadelphia, 2019.
We are sorry to say we have lost another member of our committee. Richard [Rick] Musser, a great man and good neighbor died June 28, 2026.
Born January 7, 1947, he grew up in Indiana. But he made his name in Kansas as a tenured professor of journalism at the University of Kansas in 1974. He was named the Clyde Reed Teaching Professor and won multiple awards for his teaching. He retired from teaching in 2008.
Rick became our neighbor and good friend in 2013 when he and his wife Denise moved to Seabury Avenue in Seward. Rick loved the natural beauty of the area, immediately became involved in the community, and served as a master naturalist.
In 2014, he was hired to edit the history of Seward neighborhood book. He worked with the publications team of the SNG History Committee, Dick Westby, Wendy Epstein, and Marilyn Matheny, for the next four years to publish and promote “A People’s History of the Seward Neighborhood.”
The publications team with the award at the HCLIB. Photo by HCLIB staff.
And he helped us win awards, two of them. The book won including a Midwest Independent Publishers Association Silver Award and the National Award of Excellence from the American Association for State and Local History in 2019:
On behalf of the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH), I am delighted to inform you that the publication “A People’s History of the Seward Neighborhood” was selected as a 2019 Award of Excellence winner by the Leadership in History awards committee. The AASLH Leadership in History Awards is the nation’s most prestigious competition for recognition of achievement in state and local history. We congratulate you for the work that has brought this honor.
He traveled to Philadelphia to accept the award on behalf of the SNG Publications team in 2019. He continued to work with Dick Westby and the history committee giving talks and walking tours until he moved from the neighborhood a couple of years ago. We are thankful for the time he spent with us, grateful for his contributions to our neighborhood, and sad for our loss.