Expand<\/a><\/p>\nBut Miller\u2019s contributions to Long Beach and the aquatics community went much further.<\/p>\n
Miller, a Long Beach native who swam and played water polo for Wilson High, served as a seasonal lifeguard for the city from 1950 to 1974. His seasonal tenure ended when city officials appointed him chief of the Long Beach Lifeguards, a position he held for 11 years. In 1984, he became manager of city marinas.<\/p>\n
The former chief also served as commodore of LBYC, where he was remembered fondly on Thursday. With lifeguards from Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, and across Los Angeles County attending the celebration of life, in fact, LBYC was at capacity \u2013 with about 75 people forced to stand.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you imagine how many people would be here if most of his friends weren\u2019t dead? The yacht club bar couldn\u2019t handle it,\u201d Miller\u2019s grandson, Tommy Miller, said about the chief\u2019s long life and enduring popularity. \u201cHeroes live forever but legends never die.\u201d<\/p>\n
The celebration of life featured a bagpipe performance, eight bells being rung and Long Beach Lifeguards harbor patrol boats shooting water into the air in the bay. Scott Dixson, battalion chief for Long Beach\u2019s Marine Safety Bureau and LBYC\u2019s staff commodore, rowed in a vintage lifeguard dory with his children Cooper and Berklee Dixson. Berklee sat in the bow, and placed a pair of leis in the water before spreading Miller\u2019s ashes in the bay.<\/p>\n
Friends and family also discussed Miller\u2019s legacy. Longtime pal John McHullen, who delivered the eulogy, showed a stack of about 140 letters that were sent to Miller\u2019s family after his death.<\/p>\n
![\"From](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LPT-L-LIFEGUARD-FACILITY-0717-DK-06.jpg\")
From left, Dick Miller and Pat Flynn attend a dedication ceremony of Long Beach\u2019s Junior Lifeguard Facility in their honor on Thursday, July 16, 2026. Miller and Flynn were instrumental in establishing the City\u2019s Junior Lifeguard program in 1971. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a trailblazer,\u201d McHullen said.<\/p>\n
Richard Miller was born July 2, 1933, to Lilia and Vic Miller. He attended Lowell Elementary and Rogers Middle schools before graduating from Wilson High and then heading to college at San Jose State University. That\u2019s where he met Melva Sperling, who he married in 1955. They would be together until Miller\u2019s death \u2013 71 years later.<\/p>\n
After returning to Long Beach, Miller spent the rest of his life dedicated to the community. During his career, Miller started the Long Beach dive team and developed the Lifeguard Code of Ethics, among other accomplishments. He also coached swim and water polo at Poly and Millikan high schools, and served as LBYC commodore in 2013.<\/p>\n
Despite officially retiring in 1995, he kept busy, serving on a city advisory committee that was working on a plan to rebuild the historic Belmont Pool. He also sat on the board for the Long Beach Aquatic Capital of America Foundation, which supports the city\u2019s rich aquatic history and is working to strengthen it.<\/p>\n
And during his life, he befriended hundreds of water lovers, including Olympic swimmer Susie Atwood and surfer Jericho Poppler, who were among those who attended the celebration of life.<\/p>\n
It was lifeguards, however, who seemed to make the biggest impact on his life, after his family, of course.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would always talk about lifeguards as being his family,\u201d his widow, Melva Miller, said after her husband died. \u201cHe always said he had a great life because of lifeguarding and could not have asked for anything better.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why LBYC was crammed to beyond capacity on Thursday morning. So the hundreds of people who knew Richard \u201cDick\u201d Miller, who worked with him, looked up to him and loved him could say goodbye \u2013 to say farewell to the legendary lifeguard chief.<\/p>\n
Columnists Rich Archbold and Jo Murray contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Southern California aquatics community converged on the Long Beach Yacht Club on Thursday morning, Sept. 24, to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,23,131,133,132,137,10238],"class_list":["post-475619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-local-news","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Long](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LPT-L-MILLER-MEMORIAL-0926-02-1.jpeg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Berklee](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LPT-L-MILLER-MEMORIAL-0926-01.jpeg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LPT-L-MILLER-MEMORIAL-0926-03.jpeg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n