Passages

Penny Elizabeth Campbell, a pioneer in the fight for LGBT rights and a strong advocate for justice and equality, died Sept. 3, 2014, at her Nashville home. She was 61. Read More

Dale A. Johnson, the Drucilla Moore Buffington Professor of Church History, emeritus, died Aug. 10. He was 78. Read More

George Barrett, indefatigable Nashville civil rights lawyer, died Aug. 26 at age 86. Read More

Kathleen Elizabeth Woods of Nashville died Aug. 3 at age 63. Woods served as a board member at University School and at St. Mary’s Sewanee, a center for spiritual development. Read More

Zalman I. Posner, who led Congregation Sherith Israel in Nashville for more than half a century, died April 23 in California at age 87. Read More

Janice Feagin Britton of Spanish Fort, Alabama, died Feb. 20 at age 92 after a lifetime of service and adventure. Read More

Walter R. Courtenay Jr., of Gainesville, Florida, died Jan. 30 at age 80. He was a leading authority on invasive nonindigenous fish, particularly those introduced into the United States. Read More

Cindy Zautcke of Milwaukee died June 4 at age 51. In teaching a class of 16 Nashville junior-high students who had all failed eighth grade at least twice, she came to understand her calling as a teacher. Read More

In 2003, Todd Jackson was diagnosed with a brain tumor that was surgically removed and followed by 30 doses of radiation therapy. Last year another cancer, this time a grade IV brain cancer, surfaced, and Jackson died June 9, 2014, at age 40 in Nashville. During the decade between diagnoses, he did his best to ensure that researchers have the resources to create innovative cancer therapies. Read More

On Feb. 18 the Blair School of Music lost beloved Big Band director and jazz instructor Billy Adair. A teacher, arranger, multi-instrumentalist and backbone of Blair’s jazz program, Adair died of cancer at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Read More

Martha Stelling Christian of Fripp Island, S.C., died Oct. 22, 2013. She was 92. Read More

Fourth-generation engineer Wendell G. Anderson of Medford, N.J., died Dec. 22, 2013, at the age of 96. Read More

Roger Richman, a celebrity agent who represented the heirs of Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, Mae West, Sigmund Freud, the Marx Brothers and many others, died Oct. 9, 2013, in Los Angeles. Read More

After 56 years of marriage, Walter Paul Gibson Jr. and Mary Jane Knowles Gibson died just three weeks apart last summer. Read More

F. Sheldon Hackney served as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and as president of both the University of Pennsylvania and Tulane University in New Orleans. Read More

Rabbi Randall M. Falk was at the forefront of religious leadership in Nashville and made significant contributions to Jewish life, the civil rights struggle, community-building among the city’s increasingly diverse population, and to Jewish–Christian relations. Read More

Ellen Fanning joined Vanderbilt’s faculty in 1995 and served as chair of the Department of Molecular Biology from 1999 to 2002. Read More

Chinese Heart AFP / Getty Images Eunice Moe Brock of Liaocheng City, Shandong, China, died April 28, 2013. She was 95. Known as Mu Lin’ai, she was born in Hebei, the daughter of American missionaries to China. She recalled the tumultuous time of her youth in a… Read More

“Show … Your … Gold!” Crowell with his grandson Reid (Courtesy of Frank Crowell III) Frank Crowell, game-day announcer for Commodore football and men’s basketball for 22 years, died July 9, 2013. He was 71. A Nashville native and graduate of the University of North Carolina, Crowell… Read More

The Physician as Polymath Courtesy of Michael Tekeli Dr. Patrick Spencer Tekeli of San Francisco died June 27, 2013. He was 55. Born in San Francisco, he graduated from the University of California-Berkeley in 1980. After earning his medical degree at Vanderbilt in 1984, he began an… Read More