Berry will play a doubleheader with Auburn-Montgomery at William R. Bowdoin Field on Saturday starting at 1 p.m. and will take donations throughout both contests.
A native of Calhoun, Richardson began his college career at Jacksonville State before eventually transferring to Berry in 1996, where he played baseball for coach Steve Shartzer and earned his undergraduate degree in accounting. He held a lifetime connection with Berry and sat on the Executive Advisory Board of Berry’s Campbell School of Business.
Richardson was also involved in the community through his work as Board President of Harbor House, as a board member of the Salvation Army and as a past board member with Heart of the Community. He was also involved at Lakeview Baptist Church, where he helped to create the Young Adult Cancer Support Group.
While the Berry community mourns the loss of a committed alumni, the team would like to raise money to donate to the family members that survive Shane: his wife, daughter and two sons.
Remembering Shane
Richardson was a man who had his priorities in order. “Family, church, then office, but the office never suffered for that,” said business partner Ron Abbott.
Funeral services for Richardson, 38, who died Saturday, April 3, were at 1 p.m. Tuesday in the sanctuary of the West Rome Baptist Church; interment followed in Oaknoll Memorial Gardens.
Richardson was a graduate of Calhoun High and also attended Jacksonville State University in Alabama on a baseball scholarship. He finished his college at Berry, graduating with a degree in accounting.
Richardson worked for CPA firms in Calhoun and Rome before deciding to open his own business. It was at that point that Abbott suggested they form a partnership and in 2007, they launched Abbott and Richardson CPA’s at 4 Professional Court in Rome.
“He was a very intelligent, outgoing, well-schooled accountant,” Abbott said. “He was able to take complex issues and solve them for his clients.”
After being diagnosed with cancer, Richardson wanted to reach out to others with the disease and helped start the Young Adults Cancer Support Group (YACS). His pastor Jason Willis at Lakeview Baptist Church said YACS was not meant to be a religious group. “It offered an opportunity for people with cancer to get together and talk about their struggles, to air out issues that other people just don’t understand,” said Willis.
“He was what you’d want out of a church member. Someone who would share the gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone he came in contact with,” Willis said.
In addition to his church work, Richardson was heavily involved in the community, serving as president of the board of directors at Harbor House, was a member of the Executive Advisory Board for the Campbell School of Business at Berry College. He had previously served on Heart of the Community Awards board and the Salvation Army.
“Berry alumni have a reputation as engaged citizens and community leaders. Shane personified these characteristics as a friend, neighbor, businessman and through his continued involvement with Berry,” said Gary Waters, Berry College’s vice president for enrollment management. “As a fellow Berry alumnus, I can truly say he embodied the best of this institution and its motto, ‘Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”’
Capt. Eileen Farrell at the Salvation Army remembered Richardson as a “strong godly man and very supportive of the mission of the Salvation Army.”
Richardson is survived by a wife, two sons, a daughter and his parents.
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