Francis “Frank” Wilbert Ryhlick

Class of 1936: Hugo Award

Under both his own name and the pen name of Frank Riley, Francis “Frank” Wilbert Ryhlick was a widely varied and prolific writer in numerous mediums.

He was born June 8, 1915, in Hibbing, Minnesota, and grew up in Wausau, Wisconsin. At Ripon, he majored in English and history and participated in football, tennis, College Days as news editor, Alpha Phi Omega and Tau Kappa Tau, the journalistic honor society. He received Ripon’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1983.

He began his career as a reporter for the New York Daily News in the late 1930s, eventually covering the White House. He served in the Merchant Marine during World War II and then moved to California.

His first book publication was the non-fiction book “Dixie Demagogues” (1939), co-written with Allan A. Michie, Class of 1936, a journalist with 39 credited works of his own.

As a science fiction writer, Ryhlick is best-known for co-writing with Mark Clifton the novel “They’d Rather Be Right,” which won a Hugo Award for Best Novel in science fiction or fantasy during 1955. It was re-titled “The Forever Machine,” the original title of the Astounding serial when published as a Galaxy SF Novel in 1959.

He also wrote short fiction such as the “Father Anton Dymek” mysteries, was host of a radio program in the Los Angeles area and published the books “Death Row Chaplain” (1962), written with Byron Eschelman, “The Kocska Formula” (1971) and “Jesus II” (1972).

For a large part of his career, he was a travel writer. He was a syndicated travel columnist and editor for the Los Angeles Times and editor of the Los Angeles Magazine from 1971 to 1988. His award-winning travel column, “Roamin’ with Riley,” appeared in syndication in newspapers such as the Denver Post, San Francisco Examiner and Chicago Tribune.

He traveled the world and frequently wrote with his wife, Elfriede Stobbe Rhylick, Class of 1938, who did photography for him and edited his manuscripts. In 1976, they walked and biked the 800-mile 1776 De Anza Trail from Mexico to San Francisco, then wrote “De Anza’s Trail Today.” They also traveled frequently with famed novelist James A. Michener and his wife, Mari.

Travel books include “Travel Adventures in California” (1976) and “Olympic Adventures in California” (1983). Other writing projects included advertisements for See’s Candies, screenplays, novels and short stories.

As a longtime Ripon College Class Agent, Ryhlick often wrote fondly of his return visits to campus. After one such tour, he wrote an atmospheric, humorous narrative: “And walking the Ripon campus has now become so much more than the cherished hand-in-hand stroll up shaded Hughes Walk, past the former sorority dorm of Bartlett Hall … up to Lane Library, Middle Hall and then West Hall, where I lived as a student and which now houses the College Museum as well as classrooms and faculty offices. … By this time we were in the mood for a travel writing trek up Union Street to the shaded trail leading into the 35 nature-study acres of South Woods Park, where as students we did so much academic research by moonlight.”

Ryhlick died April 24, 1996, at the age of 80.