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In Memoriam | Fall 2019

In Memoriam: 1960s

Notices sorted by graduation date

Norman K. Risjord (Grad ’60) of Madison, Wisconsin, died Jan. 31, 2019. He graduated from the College of William & Mary, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and lettered in swimming. He served in the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps in Berlin from 1954 to 1956 before earning his doctorate from UVA in 1960. He studied early American history, specializing in the birth and development of political parties after the American Revolution. After beginning his teaching career at DePauw University, he joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin in 1964, where he won the Kiekhofer Teaching Award his first year. Beginning in 1967, Wisconsin Public Radio broadcast his classroom lectures and continued to do so periodically until 1989. Mr. Risjord was awarded Fulbright Lectureships at universities in Sweden and Singapore, and he served as a visiting professor at Columbia University, at the U.S. Naval Academy and in Dundee, Scotland. After his retirement in 1993, he applied his love of teaching as a volunteer with a local learning-in-retirement organization. His teaching career lasted a total of 60 years. In retirement, he continued to write history, including six volumes of biographical sketches stretching from the Colonial period to the 20th century and books on his native upper Midwest. In total, he wrote more than 20 books on American history. Survivors include his wife, Connie; his son; two granddaughters; and his brother.

Robert Ernest Belknap III (Col ’61) formerly of Brooklyn, New York; Stony Creek, Connecticut; and Pembroke, Bermuda, died April 10, 2019. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy. He graduated from Pomfret School and UVA, where he was a member of Sigma Phi fraternity, before attending NYU Stern School of Business. Mr. Belknap worked as a portfolio manager on Wall Street for most of his life. He also served on the boards of the YWCA of New York City, the United Hospital Fund of Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Hospital and the Children’s Village of Dobbs Ferry. He loved sailing in the Thimble Islands in Connecticut and served as commodore of the Thimble Islands Sailing Club. He also loved playing squash at the Heights Casino in Brooklyn Heights. Most of all, he loved spending time with his family and friends and was known for his hospitality and generosity. Survivors include his wife, Mary Sloan Belknap; three daughters; nine grandchildren; two brothers and a sister.

William Herbert Crowder III (Col ’63, Darden ’66 L/M) of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, died April 24, 2019. At UVA, he was a member of Kappa Alpha fraternity. He was a lifelong supporter of UVA football and basketball. He joined the U.S. Army after college and attained the rank of captain. He served as company commander and then chief personnel officer of the 56th General Hospital in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. He later transitioned to banking, where he spent years with Citibank, Bankers Trust, Security Pacific and PNC, and worked in New York City, London and Philadelphia. Mr. Crowder left banking to return to UVA, where he founded the Armstrong Center for Alumni Career Services at the Darden Graduate School of Business and served as a guest lecturer. Mr. Crowder and his wife shared a love of golf and were members of several golf clubs in the U.S. and abroad, and he served on the boards for several of them. He was also an avid duplicate bridge player. For the last decade, Mr. Crowder could be found fishing on Maine lakes in the summer and sharing his love of golf with his grandchildren. Despite difficulties in recent years, he made a conscious decision to make every day a happy one and to make others happier through laughter. Survivors include his wife, Susan; two sons, including Andrew Crowder (Engr ’01); four grandchildren; and his brother and sister.

Jerry Lee Coffey (Col ’64) of Middletown, Virginia, died Dec. 30, 2018. An Echols Scholar at UVA, he was a member of the Virginia Gentlemen, the Glee Club and Phi Beta Kappa, and he lived on the Lawn. He earned his doctorate in mathematical statistics from George Washington University in 1971 and, after doing notable work at the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Postal Service, served as senior mathematical statistician in the Office of Management within the Executive Office of the President. Mr. Coffey served on the board of the American Statistical Association. After he retired from civil service, he was asked by the chair of the House Committee on Reform to analyze the census, about which Mr. Coffey subsequently testified in Congress. He did private consulting work, including the pivotal analysis for a case decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia, and he served pro bono many years on an interagency working group. Family was central to his life, and he cherished his daughter and son, Laurel and Jay. Survivors include his wife, Gretchen, and his children.  His wife welcomes any memories of Mr. Coffey, which can be emailed to gretcof@outlook.com.

Daniel Trigg Sargeant (Col ’67, Med ’75, Res ’92 L/M) of Williamsburg, Virginia, died on April 15, 2019. At UVA, he was an Echols Scholar and elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He served in the U.S. Air Force at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo, where he wrote programs for an early computer. After his residencies in pediatrics and pediatric endocrinology, he practiced medicine in the U.S. Air Force. He was gentle and kind, and his patients loved him. Dr. Sargeant was on the clinical faculty at Tulane University and the University of California, Davis. He developed a fascination with diagnostic imaging and completed a residency in radiology at UVA. He practiced diagnostic radiology until his retirement as a colonel in 2005. From his time in Japan, he developed an appreciation for ink painting and imagism. He loved the arias of Verdi and Donizetti, the songs of Emmylou Harris, the cowboy novels of Louis L’Amour, and the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. He could recall every detail of BBC murder mysteries with eidetic precision. Dr. Sargeant possessed a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, and a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life. Dr. Sargeant was buried in the Davis section of the UVA cemetery, as he was a descendent of John A. G. Davis, former professor of law at the University, and Mary Jane Terrell, a grandniece of Thomas Jefferson. Survivors include his wife, Andrea Chisick (Educ ’85 L/M); two children; a brother and a sister.

James J. Laidler (Engr ’68) of Lockport, Illinois, died Nov. 2, 2018. He served in the U.S. Army. He worked for Westinghouse Hanford Co. from 1970 to 1988 and Argonne National Laboratory from 1988 to 2005. He was a member of Theta Chi fraternity and Sigma Gamma Epsilon honor society, as well as a fellow of the American Nuclear Society and American Chemical Society. Survivors include his wife, Shirley; four children; two stepchildren; three grandchildren; one step-granddaughter; and his sister.

Alan B. Wambold (Col ’69, Grad ’71, ’76 L/M) of Glen Allen, Virginia, died Oct. 29, 2018. At UVA, he was a member of the Glee Club and the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society and staff announcer for WTJU. Mr. Wambold worked as a research associate with various committees at the Virginia Division of Legislative Services from 1975 to 2015. In addition to his work on numerous legislative resolutions, he wrote A Legislator’s Guide to Transportation in Virginia, a compendium of transportation laws and issues in Virginia, and served as lead staff for many General Assembly transportation-related studies. From 1973 to 1974, he worked and studied in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in affiliation with the law faculty of the University of Belgrade. Mr. Wambold had command of written and spoken German and Serbo-Croatian and a reading knowledge of Russian. His interests included general and military history, numismatics, music, travel and amateur dramatics. Survivors include his brother, two nephews and his former wife.