Richard Wayne Romine, 88, of Alvin, Texas passed away peacefully on July 11, 2025 at Serenity Gardens in Dickinson, Texas following a long battle with dementia.

Wayne is survived by his loving wife of 64 years, Annette; sons David (Beth) and Paul (Stacy) both of Friendswood, Texas; brother Dick (Nancy) of Bartlett, Tennessee and sister JoAnn Howell of Jonesboro, Arkansas; grandchildren Madison Duarte (Erik) of Dalhart, Texas and Zachary Romine of Friendswood, Texas; three great-grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his parents Edna and Henry Porter “Pop” Romine; brother Robert Romine; and sisters Sue Renck, Helen Trousdale, and Dorothy Smith.

Wayne was born in Lauderdale County, Alabama on August 18, 1936. The Romine family later moved to Weiner, Arkansas following World War II where he grew up and graduated from Weiner High School in 1954.

He enlisted in the United States Air Force following high school, serving for four years
primarily at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Upon discharge in 1958, he attended
Arkansas State University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in
chemistry.

During this time, he began dating the love of his life, Annette White and they were later
married on March 29, 1961 while he was attending graduate school at the University of
Arkansas–Little Rock Graduate Institute of Technology.

He spent his entire career working as a process control engineer with the Rohm and
Haas Chemical Company beginning in 1965 until his retirement in 1999. His career with
Rohm and Haas began at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, later transferring to plant locations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and finally in Deer Park, Texas. He forged many lasting friendships during his working career that endured throughout his long retirement. Wayne always looked forward to their regular penny poker games over the years up to and including the last one held just a couple of months prior to his passing.

He was active in the amateur radio hobby throughout his life and enjoyed countless
hours over the decades planning, designing, building and rebuilding elements of his
dream shack.

He loved camping and enjoyed numerous summer camping trips over the years during
travels to visit family in Arkansas and Tennessee. The joy the family had camping in
Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Arkansas and the various legendary adventures
with his older brother, Dick Romine’s family are some of the happiest and most
cherished family memories.

He was deeply involved in his sons’ sports. This ranged from coaching baseball teams
to acting as a catcher, or more accurately a backstop, for a couple of wild pitchers. It’s
hard to count the number of times you could see Wayne out there hopping around after
taking a “fastball” off his shin while teaching his sons to pitch. But he walked it off,
rubbed some dirt on it and squatted right back down to take the next pitch. He took
great pride in his sons’ baseball activities and tried to help in any way that he could. He
even figured out a way to hold his hand in the catcher’s mitt to make it pop extra loud
when warming pitchers up in the bullpen before and during the game. He made it
sound like Nolan Ryan was warming up to get into the heads of the opposing team.

He was also involved in the soccer activities of both sons. Whether it was a cold early
morning marking the soccer fields for the day’s game or running the sidelines as a
linesman during the game, Wayne was always there. All of this from a man who grew
up in the 1940s and 1950s in a small rural town of 600 in northeast Arkansas who
probably never saw a game of soccer until his sons started playing in the 1970s.
Soccer became one of his favorite sports for the remainder of his life.

Wayne was a man of amazing and seemingly unending talents. It didn’t matter about
the subject: math, physics, chemistry, electrical, computer, mechanical, automotive or
construction, he could do anything he put his mind to and was amazingly capable and
knowledgeable about it all. For years, the family never relied on service folks to fix
things and quite often neighbors would enlist his help in fixing their things as well. In the
eyes of his children, he truly was like superman and could solve, figure out or fix
anything. Though his grandchildren knew him during his later years, his legacy of
exceptional ability and talent lives on in the stories shared by those who knew him best.

For relaxation, Wayne especially loved old time mountain music featuring clawhammer
style banjo. During frequent camping trips to the Blanchard Springs Recreation Area in
Arkansas, the family would often visit the Ozark Folk Center in nearby Mountain View to
attend nightly concerts held during the summer season. A music aficionado often able
to identify all the old songs in just a few notes, it would irritate him to no end when
everyone would start clapping along, often drowning out the music that he loved.

Wayne spoke frequently about wanting to learn to play the banjo. As a joke one
Christmas, Annette purchased an inexpensive Korean made banjo from Sears along
with a “learning to play the banjo” LP and to the amazement of everyone, off he went
learning to play! Remarkably, he taught himself and became quite good, a feat for
someone in his 40s with no prior musical training.

Retirement years brought grandchildren and the joy of helping, along with Annette, to
guide and raise them to adulthood. He was highly involved in the extracurricular
activities of his grandchildren, attending every baseball game/tournament, horse show,
basketball game, band concert and football game that they were involved in. In addition to all the sports activities, Wayne also enjoyed spending quality time with the grandkids
on an almost daily basis from the time they were infants until they were school aged.

In accordance with Wayne’s wishes, no funeral service is planned. Family and friends
are encouraged to remember the many ways he touched their lives. Memorial
contributions may be made in his honor to the Alzheimer’s Association at alz.org.