March 26, 1941 – January 17, 2024
Richard Jay Worley, a man who lived an incredible life filled with adventure, achievement, and love passed away peacefully on January 17, 2024. Dick was born on March 26, 1941, in Salina, Kansas, and graduated from Salina High School in 1959. He was president of the student council and voted the Most Outstanding in his class. He received a scholarship to Yale and graduated Magna cum Laude majoring in Ancient History.
During Christmas Break of his senior year at Yale, he embarked on the greatest adventure of his life and married Sue Hardisty, who would be his lifelong companion and co-author of one of the world’s greatest love stories.
Dick then attended medical school at the University of Kansas Medical School in Kansas City. During summer breaks he and Sue spent time in Colorado, which helped create a lasting love of the state and its beautiful mountains. Ever the adventurer, he took rock climbing lessons, and soon enough, climbing became a passion. He attended a climbing school on Mt. Rainier, climbing the mountain at night so he could watch the sunrise from the peak. This is a perfect example of his sense of adventure.
Upon graduation from medical school he joined the Navy and volunteered for a year’s tour of duty at the South Pole Station in Antarctica, another wonderful example of his adventurous spirit. It was during this time of military service that Dick and Sue added their kids to the story… Jay was born in Philadelphia in 1968 and Brian in Bremerton, WA in 1971.
Dick then did a residence in OB-GYN at the University of Oklahoma followed by a fellowship in endocrinology at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, TX. The family moved to Park City when he joined the faculty at the University of Utah in 1979, where he helped start the first In Vitro Fertilization program in the state. He was an accomplished researcher and was well respected in his profession. Dick was invited to lecture at conferences around the world, became president of the American Association of Endocrinology, and was on the committee which each year composed the OB-GYN exam given to all physicians graduating in that specialty. He left academic medicine in 1989 and joined Conceptions, a small group in private practice in the Denver-Boulder area of Colorado. After 40 years of practicing medicine he retired and returned to Park City to pursue his passion for skiing, golf, cooking, and traveling. He volunteered to be the physician at a clinic in Nepal for a week and went to Guatemala with the Hope Alliance.
After living in southern Utah for five years Dick and Sue moved to Summit Vista in Taylorsville in the fall of 2023. He is survived by Sue, his wife for 62 years, son Richard Jay Worley, Jr. of Jamestown, CO, son Brian Andrew Worley of Park City, six grandchildren and two great grandsons, and an exchange-student granddaughter and great grandaughter in Denmark. Dick lived life to the fullest and poured himself into the family and friends around him. A celebration of his life is scheduled for 2:00 on Saturday, March 9th at Park City Community Church, with a reception following immediately afterward in the church’s Fellowship Hall. We warmly invite all our friends and family to join us as we honor, reflect upon, and share memories from a life well-lived.