He began as a pre-med student; however, a Lutheran seminary sent a guest pastor that inspired him to leave OSU to attend Concordia Seminary in Springfield, IL where he graduated in 1966. He started a vicarage in Indianapolis, IN, in which his year turned into two years. Then, he was called to his first church in Quincy, IL to St. James Lutheran Church. There he met Hannah Hollister at a local bookstore, and they married on November 22nd, 1967. During those happy years, their two children, Richard Lee Ingmire II and Ann Elizabeth Ingmire (Baker) were born. When St. James Church’s senior pastor died, Richard was elected Senior Pastor at the young age of 29.In 1973, he received a call to Oakmont, PA and the Ingmire family moved to the suburbs. He started a youth group there, as well as inviting women to vote in the church assemblies. But during 1977, there was a time of division in the LCMS, and Richard decided to leave the ministry when a position opened up in Quincy, IL to reopen the Adams County Youth Home. There he wrote a revised manual for the Adams County Youth Home as a superintendent; however, he missed the ministry.

God then sent him a call in 1983 to Hannibal, MO to become the new sole pastor of St. John Lutheran Church, which included a nursing home and a church school. He also began a Good Friday March with multi-denominational churches, in which they marched from church to church to hear mini sermons of the Seven Last Words of Christ. While in Hannibal, he earned the NAACP Martin Luther King Award for his work. After retirement, Richard served as the Lutheran chaplain for hospitals in mid-Missouri until he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2021. Richard is survived by a sister, Sharon (Ingmire) Clinton; his wife, Hannah; his daughter, Ann Baker (Ingmire), her husband, Tim Baker and their children, Miles and Lucy Baker; his son, Rich, and his wife, Pam, along with their children, Will and Jake Ingmire, Samantha (Toben) Hinkle, Sara (Toben) Jefferson, Steven Toben, and five great-grandchildren, Jackson, Lewis, Lucile, Charlotte and Theodore. He is preceded in death by his mother, Helen, and father, Forrest, as well as his brother, Gary Dean Ingmire.