GOLDSBORO — Richard Daniel "Dick" Auger died Saturday morning, March 9, 2013 in Raleigh at Rex Rehab and Nursing Center.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, March 13, 2013 at Saint Paul United Methodist Church, 204 E. Chestnut Street, in Goldsboro. The family will receive visitors in the church immediately following the service. Interment will be beside his wife Margaret in Whiteville, NC at a later date.
Dick was born in Bolton, NC on May 1, 1919, the son of Arthur M. and Zillah Jones Auger. He spent most of his childhood in Whiteville, and graduated from Whiteville High School in 1936. He had one older brother, the late Milford Auger of Burlington.
Dick had the great good fortune to marry his wife, Dora Margaret Cooper Auger, who he met during his Army training in the mountains of West Virginia. She loved her children above all else and was a wonderful mother. Three children, Sandra Pittman of Greensboro, Scott Auger of Cary, and Rene Edwards of Smithfield survive. They also have six grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
Dick graduated from Louisburg Junior College in 1940, where he was a champion boxer, sang in the school chorus and played trumpet in a swing band. After graduation, he worked for a short time as a clerk at Camp Davis in eastern NC. He then entered the Army at the start of World War II and soon advanced to the rank of Captain. In 1944, he joined the fight in Europe just 20 days after the Normandy invasion, in command of a transportation company delivering fuel to support Patton's Red Ball Express. He served in Europe until the end of the war in 1945.
After leaving the Army, Dick studied accounting at the University of Montana, where he graduated in 1947. Dick and Margaret were married in Missoula, Montana on December 19, 1946. When Margaret passed away on February 9, 1993, they had been married for over 46 years.
Dick's first job after graduation from the University of Montana was as Assistant Auditor for Columbus County, NC. He was soon volunteering time to organize and lead a Boy Scout troop. In 1948, he changed careers to professional Scouting as District Executive in the Cape Fear Council of the Boy Scouts of America. For four years, beginning in 1950, he was District Executive for the Central North Carolina Council living in Concord, NC. In 1955, he was transferred to the East Carolina Council as District Executive and Field Service Director. The family lived in Wilson, NC for 10 years. There he was a charter member of the Sertoma Club and its "Man of the Year" in 1963. In 1965, Dick became the Scout Executive for the Tuscarora Council headquartered in Goldsboro, where he served until his retirement in 1981.
Dick was committed to Boy Scouting and dedicated his life to advancing the cause of that great organization. One of his greatest talents was to recruit outstanding leaders from the community to support Scouting, who invariably became his closest friends. He was also a man that was not afraid to dream big and then find a way to make dreams come true. It was his dream that led to pilgrimages of faith and patriotism to Halifax, Bath, and Washington, D.C. that involved thousands of Scouts and volunteers. It was also his dream and leadership that resulted in development of the new Camp Tuscarora Scout Reservation.
