Former RTDNA President Ernie Schultz dead at 87

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

https://rtdna.org/article/former_rtdna_president_ernie_schultz_dead_at_87

He was the former leader of the RTDNA

We all looked up to Ernie Schultz, the only man to serve as elected president and full-time president of our organization. He was our wise advisor, our firm and deeply-committed leader, a man who exemplified the best that our industry can be and elevated us as an organization and as individual members of it.

Next year will be the thirtieth year since Ernie surprised all of us by announcing he was leaving the association presidency. So let’s tell you about this good man and how our organization still bears his fingerprints.

Ernie had been in good health and in fact sent a Thanksgiving message to members of his association generation a week before his death, “I am amazed and very pleased that so many of us are still out of jail, able to spell big words and appreciative of all the many benefits of our profession; especially in the time in which we practiced it; We are truly blessed. Teddy and I are in excellent health and keep very busy.”

Tuesday, November 28th, Ernie fell at his home and struck his head. He died later that day from bleeding in the brain. He was 87 and is survived by his wife Teddy, children Jack and Elizabeth, and many other relatives and friends.

This reminiscence about Ernie might become long as we write it. But he was so vitally important to what is now RTDNA that we cannot compose this as a forty-second standup.

Ernie’s father was a professor at the University of Arizona when Ernie was born. The family moved to Norman, Oklahoma when he was ten and his father joined faculty at the University of Oklahoma.