Dick Nichols

Who is Dick Nichols?

Richard Nichols was a one-term U.S. Representative from Kansas.

Born in Fort Scott, Kansas, Nichols attended the public schools. He earned his B.S. from Kansas State University in 1951, after serving as an ensign in the United States Navy from 1944 to 1947.

Nichols was informational counsel to the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, served as associate farm director of radio and television stations in Topeka, Kansas, and was agricultural representative of a bank in Hutchinson, Kansas. Since 1969 he has served as president and chairman of the board of Home State Bank, McPherson, Kansas.

He served as a member of the Kansas State Republican Executive Committee, was a delegate to the 1988 Republican National Convention, and was the Republican Party chair for the Fifth Congressional District from 1986 to 1990.

In 1986 Nichols was stabbed by an insane man aboard the Staten Island Ferry while a tourist with his wife in New York City. He fully recovered from his wounds and was visited by Mayor Ed Koch in the hospital.

Nichols was elected as a Republican to the One Hundred Second Congress, representing Kansas's 5th congressional district. In the reapportionment following the 1990 Census, the size of Kansas' congressional delegation was reduced from 5 to 4, eliminating the 5th district. In 1992, Rep. Nichols ran for the Republican nomination to challenge Dan Glickman in the 4th congressional district, but lost in the primary to Eric R. Yost, who lost to Glickman in the general election.