Dick Parks (left) with Virginia and Roger Tory Peterson in 1986 during the 50th Anniversary of the GOS.

Richard A. (Dick) Parks (b. 1920) is an Atlanta native where has lived most of his life. He graduated from Tech High in 1939 and enrolled in the Georgia Institute of Technology where he received his BS in Architecture in 1943.  He was also in the Naval ROTC while in college and was commissioned upon graduation and served the remainder of World War II in the Pacific aboard ship.  Following the war he started his career as an architect in Atlanta.

Dick discovered birds quite early in life and one of his favorite pastimes as a boy was drawing.  Over the years he became a very talented self taught painter specializing in birds.  He is a charter member of GOS (1936) and has been very generous with his time and his exceptional artistic ability to both GOS and Atlanta Audubon Society.  His Orchard Oriole appears on the cover of the GOS journal, The Oriole, and the homepage of this website.  Perhaps his best known painting, Brown Thrasher and Cherokee Rose, hangs in the Georgia Govenor’s mansion. 

--John Swiderski