Champion by Choice

Building a life in foster homes and rebelling a few times to be close to a brother and then a sister led to a life not finishing high school, of care-free money and eventually juvenile detention to hard-core prison. Prison, yes! Scary, yes! Yes, to a scrawny kid with no education and no direction. Luckily, while in prison he found the right friends, combining that with a strong will to succeed and the raw energy to try something new. He achieved many goals from a high school diploma to being a world-renowned weightlifter, still holding the US 630# Dead Lift Title. He won every match he attempted, set over forty-five records, and was the only inmate to be flown out of state for a meet in Colorado. While accomplishing these feats in prison, he had to cope with different personalities and temperaments. Richard Luckman met celebrities, served on the Wisconsin Prisons Industries Board—which had to be approved by the Wisconsin Senate and approved by Governor Earl—and received clemency after serving twenty years in prison. In the last twenty-seven years he has been a productive member of society doing many jobs, but finding his calling as a vitamin and herb store owner, while accomplishing, at the age of fifty-eight, setting state and US records at the Senior Weightlifting Championships in West Allis, Wisconsin, and winning gold at the Olympic Championships in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the age of sixty-three.