Blair Patrick Higgins

Blair was born in Omaha, NE, the son of Blair W. Higgins and Mary Lou Olivo Higgins and the grandson of John Olivo (founder of City Wide Rock) and Elizabeth Pattavina Olivo and Gerald and Bernarda Higgins of Michigan. Rick was raised in St. Ann’s Parish in Omaha where he excelled academically, earning a scholarship to attend Creighton Prep. In 1978 he met his future wife, a recent graduate of Mercy High School, Patti Kasun in the parking lot of Mafia Pizza as she arrived to work making pizza, he to relax in the Wooden Apple Bar. Their relationship began later that summer when he ordered an anchovy pizza. Patti could not make this pizza for him since unfortunately, anchovies were not on the menu. He persisted, later providing the anchovies, she providing her phone number.

Rick and Patti were happily married on August 22, at St. Gerald’s church in Ralston.

The young couple quickly created a nice, little family of five children in eight years and moved out of South Omaha to a larger home Council Bluffs. Rick, working as a warehouseman and driver for a sheet metal warehouse when they moved, soon started his own courier business, contracting with a major firm from Minnesota. He delivered financial documents between Omaha and Des Moines. When his contract ended a number of years later, he worked for a store fixture manufacturer but soon found his restricted vision due to retinitis pigmentosa prevented his from safely navigating in an often-busy environment with forklifts, materials and people all moving to complete tasks.

Now in his forties, Rick attended Iowa Western Community College, then Buena Vista College, earning a degree in accounting in the 1990’s. Many of his children and his wife took note of his determination and diligence to complete his degree and they were inspired to also complete college during the coming years. Rick joined the J.D. Casey Co. as an office manager and handled all the accounting duties for the small firm, until he eventually left the company in 2012, his progressive eye disease destroying his ability to read the fine print on essential documents.

For many years, Rick enjoyed listening to Progressive Jazz, watching his favorite sport teams, bike riding and growing organic vegetables in his gardens. He loved watching science fiction movies and television, and was an avidly consumer of television news shows especially business news channels. Due to his grasp of accounting and economic principles he predicted the beginning of the 2008 economic crisis and recession in the fall of 2007, and warned those in his sphere of influence.

Tragically, Rick had a bicycle accident in 2009 and his health was impaired in diverse manners. He suffered from chronic pain, depression, and many slowly compounding complications over the years. During 2020, after the beginning of the Covid19 pandemic he suffered a pulmonary embolism and was hospitalized for many weeks. After a hopeful start to recovery Rick’s medical condition deteriorated during the next two years. Rick died on July 6, 2022 just outside of his home as he was about to go to a doctor’s appointment.

He is now and will be deeply missed by his children, his wife, siblings, aunts, all of those many, many nieces and nephews, cousins, but most especially, his two young grandchildren Oliver Blair and Violet ages 4 and 2. May they not suffer too greatly in the future from the loss of not knowing their incredibly intelligent, boisterous, determined and oh, so handsome grandfather.