For Absent Friends

I received an email from Ken saying the following:

Rob...

I just had a call from Joan Bjork and she informed me that both Jim Judy and his wife are deceased...
I'm sorry to hear about the Judy's; they were kind and considerate colleagues. Jim was the first person I met when I came here to interview.

In response to Ken's email, Herman Saatkamp wrote:

Very sad news.  But it emphasizes the need for us to complete our task...

It does indeed! And as Ken has written elsewhere and said around the corridors, this book should have been written a while back.  In line with this, we now would then merely be creating a companion volume as part of our task instead of endeavoring to accomplish the whole history.

Be that as it may, I do think that we need a section in this blog -- which I am calling "For Absent Friends" -- where we commemorate at length (or even just briefly) some of the people who are no longer with us.  Obviously, Jim Judy is one of them, and he is certainly someone about whom I would like to hear more.  Paul Lyons, Dave Emmons, and Vera King Farris have also been in our thoughts recently.  But there are many, many others who have added substance and flavor to our institution. 

Rob