Richard “Dick” Grimes, a man whose influence touched people and institutions throughout Ocean City, died Saturday at age 96.
Grimes was the first black employee of the U.S. Post Office in Ocean City. He helped found the Ocean City Youth Athletic Association in 1956. As a member of the Ocean City Ecumenical Council, he helped create the local Food Cupboard and Clothes Closet. He was active with the Boys Scouts and the Housing Authority. He was named the Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year in 2007.
A World War II veteran, Grimes came home to Ocean City and mentored countless Ocean City youth with his knowledge and boundless enthusiasm.
“He was basically one of the finest Ocean City citizens that we’ve known,” said Bill Hughes Sr., a former U.S. Representative and ambassador who lives in Ocean City. “He was always up on current events, and he loved Ocean City.”
“When he walked down the Avenue, it would take him a half hour to get to the bank,” Hughes said, recalling an image of Grimes shaking hands and speaking with all the people he knew.
“We’re going to miss him,” Hughes said. “I’ve never heard him say anything negative about anybody. He loved children and devoted his life to helping others.”
Grimes was active in the Democratic Club in town, and he helped with Congressional campaigns during Hughes tenure from 1974 to 1994.
Born in Pittsburgh in 1919, Grimes came to Ocean City to live with his grandmother, Emma Davis, when he was 7 years old. He was schooled in Ocean City but moved briefly to Philadelphia and graduated from Central High School.
Grimes served five years with the 13th Combat Cargo Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Forces, which was involved in aerial transport from India to Burma and later from Burma to China during World War II.
He returned to Ocean City and began a lifelong career with the Post Office.
He married a Marzita Miles Grimes, a graduate of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore who was the first black teacher at Ocean City High School (home economics). Marzita died in March at age 97.
Grimes is survived by two daughters, Clarissa Price of Baltimore and Rita Brown of Galloway Township.
Grimes helped organize the Ocean City Youth Athletic Association in 1956 for baseball, and he was active in creating youth basketball and football programs as well. He was later known for his interest in playing and teaching tennis.
The baseball field at Sixth Street and Haven Avenue was named for him in 2008.
“He was a great influence on the kids,” said Greg Donahue, a former OCYAA president and Ocean City educator. “He was just a wonderful person.”
Donahue recalled Grimes walking across the street from his home on Sixth Street to watch youth baseball games before they moved to the field at 35th Street.
“He would cheer the kids on and talk to them,” Donahue said. “He saw potential in children.”
Tom Williams, a veteran sportswriter and broadcaster who grew up in Ocean City and has followed local sports for 50 years, remembers Grimes as his first Babe Ruth baseball coach on a team that won a league championship.
“He was always a guy filled with energy,” Williams said. “And he had a way of lifting your energy when he showed you something on the baseball field and acted it out.”
“He came through times when there were racial barriers in Ocean City,” Williams said.
But Grimes never showed any signs of bitterness or anything but genuine interest in the community.
“He was a guy you’d see all over the place,” Williams said of Grimes, even in his later years. “And he always made you think, ‘How can I feel tired?’ ”
Dottie Cianci, coordinator of the Ocean City Ecumenical Council Community Food Cupboard, worked with Grimes since about 2000.
“It’s a great loss,” Cianci said. ” He was one of the co-founders of the Food Cupboard, and he was my mentor.”
Cianci said Grimes was instrumental in organizing the Postal Service Food Drives that help the Food Cupboard operate.
“He was always there. We couldn’t have done it without him. Both he and his wife were very active. I found it a privilege to know him. A finer person you couldn’t meet.”
Further detail is still pending, but funeral services are scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday, August 19, at the Ocean City Tabernacle.
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