Monique Kornell's Memories of Bob Whitcomb

Through scrabble I have met people from all walks of life and different ages whom I might ordinarily not have gotten to know, and it was indeed my great good fortune to become friends with Bob Whitcomb and his wife Judith.  Bob, an entomologist, was unfailingly patient with newbies, and I have always thought that his students must have thrived under his tutelage.  I learned some obscure fives from Bob (the hard way) and as giving as he was with beginners, he had a fierce competitive spirit.  I always relished his battle cry of encouragement before a tournament: "Kill, kill, kill!"

Bob was one of those people for whom retirement meant simply having more to do. While keeping up his entomology studies he also developed a passion for oral history and, with Judith, captured the details of a way of life that was soon to be forgotten in the oral histories they recorded and the books they published, such as their edition of Robert Lenon's  It seems like only yesterday: Mining and Mapping in Arizona's first century.   Bob was a seeking soul and expressed this side of himself in poetry.  His poems appeared under the title  Love, Stars, and Deity (2000) and his recently published  In Praise of Spirit   "a synthesis of Native American Spirituality and evolutionary biology expressed in poetry".

Bob and Judith wintered in Patagonia in southern Arizona and spent their summers in West Virginia.  They made the hour's drive up to Tucson to participate in  the Scrabble club scene, and Bob was integral in fostering tournament-style play in Tucson.  He was such a passionate life force that it really is hard to believe that he is gone.  He will be missed.