Richard D. Lyons, who covered science, Congress and the United Nations during almost 30 years as a reporter for The New York Times, died on Wednesday at his home in Charleston, S.C. He was 84.

The cause was complications of vascular dementia, his wife, Susan, said.

A versatile journalist, Mr. Lyons started reporting on science for The Times in the mid-1960s. He covered space exploration, including the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission and the space shuttle program, as well as medicine, psychology and mental health. He moved to Washington to cover Congress in the 1970s, then returned to New York to cover metropolitan news and the United Nations.

Among his more than 3,000 articles for The Times were features for the Travel section and obituaries, including one for Reuben Mattus, who, he wrote, “stuck an umlaut on a nonsensical name and parlayed the exotic result into the multimillion-dollar company that sold Häagen-Dazs ice cream.” Richard Daniel Lyons was born on May 31, 1928, in Brooklyn. He graduated from Great Neck High School on Long Island and earned a bachelor’s degree in geology from Brown. He served as a navigator in the Air Force from 1951 until 1953 and received a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia.

Before joining The Times, he worked for the The Commercial Appeal in Memphis and The Daily News in New York. He retired in the mid-1990s.

His first marriage, to Margaret McKenna, ended in divorce. In addition to his wife, the former Susan Pilchik Rosenbaum, he is survived by a son, David; a daughter, Abigail Wright; a stepson, Adam Rosenbaum; a stepdaughter, Tanya Gat; two granddaughters; and four stepgrandchildren.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/business/media/richard-d-lyons-versatile-times-reporter-dies-at-84.html?partner=rss&emc=rss