Daily News Miner Obituary

By Liviu Bird

Dr. Roy K. Bird, professor emeritus at UAF, died of heart failure on Friday, Aug. 14 at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. He was 61.

Dr. Bird was born on Sept. 18, 1947 in Spanish Fork, Utah to Roy H. and Glenna Bird. He grew up in Springville, Utah, with his brother, Glenn, and sister, Jane. He graduated from Springville High School with high honors in 1965.

During a mission trip to Brazil, he decided he wanted to become a teacher, which he went on to do after receiving his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English from Brigham Young University and Ph.D. from Rice University.

He never got less than an A and drove his students to do the same. Outside of the classroom, Dr. Bird was a proud husband and father, marrying Penny Cherrington in 1970 in Manti, Utah, with whom he had three sons (Dave, Bryan, and Geoff) and one daughter (Lora). Shortly after the family moved to Fairbanks, the couple divorced.

Always a world traveler, Dr. Bird then accepted a Fulbright Fellowship to Romania, where he made some of his fondest memories while experiencing life in a communist country before the revolutions of 1989. In 1987, in Cluj-Napoca, Dr. Bird married Corina Stan. They had one son, Liviu.

Despite run-ins with the Romanian Secret Police and the struggles of life just below the Arctic Circle, friends say Dr. Bird was compassionate and that he enhanced the life of every student, colleague and friend he encountered.

Dr. Bird will be remembered at the university for his service to and compassion for his students. In between telling his family the many stories of these students and their lives, he was a professor, academic adviser, chairman of the English Department, interim chairman of the Philosophy Department, and director of the Honors Program – all at the same time for a while.

Dr. Bird was awarded the distinction of being the best academic adviser at UAF for three years running. He helped create the Robert Piacenza Award in Recognition of Outstanding Teaching, which was eventually also presented to him in 2009 by his own students in the Honors Program that he spent the last years of his career and life serving, retiring in the same year.

Dr. Bird is survived by his wife, Corina; four sons, Dave, Bryan, Geoff, and Liviu; his daughter, Lora; his parents, Roy H. and Glenna; his brother, Glenn; his sister, Jane; and five grandchildren. The family asks that any memories or stories be sent to RIPDrBird@gmail.com to be posted on a special blog, ripdrbird.blogspot.com.