Richard Henry Wacenske

Richard Henry Wacenske, aged 75 years, formerly of Walworth, NY, passed away on 1 April 2017, in Annapolis, MD.  He was born in Rochester, NY on 17 January 1942, the eldest son of Elmer and Radah Wacenske.  He was predeceased by his parents, his brother, Glenn Wacenske, his niece Susan Prevost, and his grand-daughter, Kaitlyn Wacenske.  He is survived by his four children Karen (Martin) Truchok, Kurt (Kelly) Wacenske, Karl Wacenske and Kay Sweitzer; grandchildren Evelyn Truchok, Kara Wacenske, Konner Wacenske, James Wacenske, John Wacenske, Denver Shaw, Gabriel Shaw and Kayleigh Sweitzer; siblings Anne (Bob) Prevost, Bill (Jennifer) Wacenske, Judy (Doug) Wooster, Christine (Leo Snyder) Bray. He also had numerous nieces, nephews and cousins. He played three sports a year and graduated Valedictorian of his 1959 class from Wayne Central High School, located in Walworth, NY.  He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology for two semesters, General Motors Institute for at least one semester working toward a degree in Engineering.  His academic career went on hold for nearly 20 years while he raised a family.  He eventually went back to school and earned an Associate’s Degree in Computer Science in 1988.  While he had a brief stint working at Eastman Kodak, the majority of his career was for General Motors.  He worked for 30 years at the Rochester Products Division of the GM Corporation.  Throughout his life he enjoyed playing chess. He earned several trophies and was, at one time, nationally ranked.  He still had in his possession a signed copy of the game he played against Grandmaster Tigran Petrosian in 1978, a memento of which he was proud. Though in 2011 he had a stroke that left him wheelchair bound and with limited speech, his mind was still sharp and he retrained himself to play the game. He regularly attended chess club at the library local to him in Bowie, Maryland where he lived near his daughter following the stroke.