Richard Welling Roskelley was born on May 30, 1906, to Richard and Hilda Marie Roskelley in Smithfield, Utah. He was grandson of Samuel and Mary Roberts Roskelley who helped settle Smithfield. He was raised on a farm in Smithfield and attended high school there. Attending the Brigham Young College for two years, he graduated in 1926, the year the school closed. During his two years, Roskelley served as class president both years, an editor of the annual, and a member of the debating society. Following graduation, he taught at Lewiston Junior High in Lewiston, Utah, where one of his students was a young Glenn Taggart, who later became president of Utah State University. He taught for one year and then left for an LDS mission to the Germany/Austria Mission for thirty months, until 1930. During his time there, he was put in charge of the LDS Sunday School in Germany and led the first group of German Boy Scouts to the World Jamboree in England. He was also once involved in a skirmish with the Hitler Youth who wanted to get some of the LDS boys to join.

After Roskelley returned from his mission, he continued his education at the Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University) in Logan and graduated in 1932 with a degree in sociology. In 1933 he obtained his master's degree in sociology from USAC. He found temporary work with the Agricultural Experimental Station from 1931 to 1933. Because of the Depression, he had a difficult time finding a job in sociology, but he contacted Dr. Joseph A. Geddes, professor of sociology at USAC, and Dr. John A. Widtsoe, professor at USAC and an apostle in the LDS Church. They helped him get a job as an LDS Seminary teacher and principal in Rigby, Idaho. He remained there until 1935, and while living there he met Fawn Branson, whom he married on August 21, 1935, with John A. Widtsoe performing the ceremony. The couple had three children, Gene Richard, Janice, and Suzann.

The newlywed couple moved to Wisconsin where Roskelley attended the University of Wisconsin. He obtained his Phd in 1938, writing his thesis on the attitudes and behaviors of rural LDS in Rigby, Idaho regarding alcohol consumption and prohibition. During his time there, he also worked as a teaching assistant to Dr. Seaman A. Knapp, a widely respected rural sociologist, and Dr. Kimball Young.

He soon obtained a position on the staff of the Experimental Station and the Agricultural Extension Service Program at Colorado State College. He held that position until 1945 and also taught summer school extension courses in Ft. Collins, Colorado, at the Western Regional Extension Summer School. He continued to return to Ft. Collins to teach summer school until 1951. In 1945, he moved his family to Washington State College where he taught until 1947.

In 1947, Roskelley was offered the position as chairman of the Department of Sociology, recently formed by his mentor Joseph Geddes, at Utah State Agricultural College. He taught introductory sociology courses and rural sociology as well as Agricultural Extension Seminars for many years. From November 1951 to September 1954, Dr. Roskelley was chief of the Food and Agriculture Program for the United State Agency for International Development (USAID) in Iran. He helped develop some programs and was involved during the founding of Karaj Agricultural College. By his own admission, Dr. Roskelley felt that he was not well-equipped to lead this project and he later said that many of the programs did not work because neither he nor his team knew much about building indigenous institutions which could survive independent of the foreign aid. His writings on this topic led him to be one of four scholars selected by USAID in 1965 to study why so much US foreign aid was not working as it was intended. Dr. Roskelley stepped down as chairman of the Sociology Department and spent the next three years traveling the world as the senior research analyst for Southeast Asia. He studied institution building at Cornell, and in Pakistan, Korea, Japan, and the Philippines for the next few years during which time he became well acquainted with Dr James Y. C. Yen of the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction, Dr. Hu Shih of China, and Dr. Norman Borlaug, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in helping rural farmers in Central and South America. This project led to the publication of a book in 1969 called, Building Institutions to Serve Agriculture.

In 1971, Dr. Roskelley retired from USU and the next year, he was invited by Dr. James Yen to come to the Philippines and apply what he had learned at USAID. For the next four years, Dr Roskelley lived and worked in Silang, Cavite Province, in the Philippines. The program he and others developed there was called the Farmer Scholar Program and centered on teaching local leaders how to improve their agriculture and then how to teach others how to improve their education. This led to the development of many rural schools in 41 villages throughout Cavite Province. Later the World Bank granted a multimillion dollar loan to the Philippines to implement this program nationwide. In 1975, Dr. Roskelley was honored by the government of Cavite Province and the Philippines and was made an honorary son of Cavite. When he returned in 1977, he was honored by the Utah Sociological Society as Sociologist of the Year. In October of that same year, a banquet in his honor was held by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Rockefeller Foundation.

In 1978, Dr. Roskelley traveled to Mexico, Bolivia, and Ecuador to help adapt the Farmer Scholar Program to Central America. Also during this time, he helped run the Keys for Rural Development Seminars held at Utah State University and sponsored by USAID, the United States Department of Agriculture and the Office of International Programs. These ran from 1978 until 1983 and brought rural leaders from South America, the Middle East and Africa to USU to train them in improving their communities.

Throughout his life, Dr. Roskelley was active in the LDS Church. He was branch president in Wisconsin and the Philippines, as well as a Sunday school teacher, among many other leadership positions. He conducted three sociological studies for the LDS Church in the 1970s. One was a records study to help improve local record keeping in rural areas, and the other two were conducted for the Women's Relief Society. One centered on improving the monthly home visiting program called Visiting Teaching, and the other was on helping determine and better meet the social and spiritual needs of LDS women.

Dr. Roskelley loved agriculture and always maintained a farm in Smithfield along with cattle and horses, some of which were nationally recognized show horses. He stayed active in civic affairs, especially when they affected agriculture and water rights. In the late 1980s, Dr. Roskelley moved into the Williamsburg Retirement Inn in Logan, Utah because of his failing health. He died on February 22, 1991, at the age of 84 and was buried in the Smithfield Cemetery.