The Memorial Wall

“On a personal level, he was just a delightful individual — very, very competent, but also very humble and modest, despite the fact that he was a very revered figure in the Legislature by all parties,” remembered U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt.

In remembering Bill Russell, a longtime resident of Calais and chief of Vermont’s Legislative Counsel, friends and colleagues time after time used the same word to describe his demeanor: steady.

At work under the golden dome, Russell earned a reputation as a trusted confidante and unbiased legal sounding board for state lawmakers, ultimately building an office from the ground up that would continue after his retirement.

Outside the Statehouse, he was a loyal friend and family member, and an active member of his tiny village of Maple Corner — reliably available for the village on Town Meeting Day, or if a neighbor simply needed a ride to work. On stage playing in various bands throughout the years, Russell was often the player keeping a steady beat on bass. And in his final years, Russell was determined in his fight against Parkinson’s disease — a battle that he fought “right ‘til the end,” his daughter Kate Russell told VTDigger on Tuesday.

Russell died on August 15 in Sante Fe, New Mexico, where he had been living for more than three years with his wife, Maureen Russell, in a house Kate fixed up for her parents next door to her own. He was 80 years old, and had been battling Parkinson’s since 2013.

In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, Russell — a graduate of Georgetown Law — was living and working as a congressional staffer in Washington, D.C., where he met his to-be-wife Maureen on Capitol Hill. As Kate tells the story, her parents married in 1967 and had their first daughter, Sarah, in 1970 — and that’s when Russell began to crave “a little more sanity and security” outside of the beltway.

Luckily for a Hill staffer soured on D.C., the early 1970s ushered in a new era of government philosophy and structure. Embittered by Richard Nixon’s tumultuous presidency, the American public’s trust in the federal government was at an all-time low. Its dissatisfaction became palpable at the ballot box. By 1974, Vermonters elected their first-ever Democratic U.S. senator, the reformist “Watergate baby” Patrick Leahy.

It was around this time that efforts to bolster government accountability and professionalization ramped up. Take, for example, the formation of the Congressional Budget Office in 1974, a nonpartisan staff that oversees the budgetary process on Capitol Hill. Across the country, similar efforts manifested, signaling a shift in political power back to state legislatures. With that shift came the need for professional staff in Statehouse halls.

In came Russell, who arrived in Vermont, his young family in tow, in 1971. When Russell accepted his role as the chief counsel for the Vermont Legislature, the small state’s Office of Legislative Council, as it was then known, was entirely new, and consisted of just one staffer: himself.

Stephen Klein, the former director of Vermont’s Chief Fiscal Office, was a longtime colleague and friend of Russell’s. He said Russell was a consensus builder at a time when cooperation was in short supply in politics. In other words, he was “perfect” for the new job.

“His style was always very, very cooperative. He was always that person who tried to work with people to get them all to buy in — almost to a fault,” Klein quipped.

Arguably, Russell’s greatest political test in Montpelier came early in his career. A few short years into the gig in 1976, Russell was tasked with making the Legislature’s case in Vermont’s first-ever impeachment of a public official, Washington County Sheriff Mike Mayo. The predicament was unprecedented in the state, Russell recalled to Vermont Public decades after the fact. 

“He was just such a natural sweetheart,” said Geof Hewitt, Russell’s longtime friend and neighbor. “He was the ultimate kind, gentle friend. He was just there.” Photo courtesy of the Russell family.

“There was no precedent,” Russell said in a 2018 interview. “We had to decide how the Legislature would function. But we did have a model: the one for Nixon!”

The following years brought the usual waves of chaos that ebb and flow in every state capital. Throughout it all, longtime lawmaker and former House Speaker Gaye Symington recalled Russell as a calm, grounded presence in the Statehouse. “I never saw him flustered,” she told VTDigger this week.

“The Statehouse can be such a whirlwind, and he never got caught up in that,” Symington said.

Symington’s years at the speaker’s dais (2005-09) were Russell’s final years helming the legislative counsel before he retired, and those are the years she worked most closely with Russell. The office of House Speaker is “very much a whirlwind of an office,” she said, and Russell was someone with whom she could “think out loud.”

“He had seen a lot and could put things in context,” she said. 

But never, according to Symington, did Russell cross into the territory of bringing a partisan slant to his legislative work.

“He also had a really clear appreciation for the role of a citizen legislature, and he was just always respectful of that role,” she said.

Russell’s commitment to nonpartisanship was a principle he instilled in the Office of Legislative Counsel, U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., told VTDigger this week. Welch worked closely with Russell during his years in the Vermont Legislature, particularly as Senate President Pro Tempore, preceding his election to Congress in 2006.

“I strongly believe that that tradition of nonpartisan staff, professional staff, has been very beneficial to the functioning of the Vermont Legislature, to the benefit of Vermonters,” Welch said. “He’s one of two people that I think played a major role in creating that culture of trust that is absolutely essential for Republicans and Democrats and independents to have confidence that they’re being treated fairly and equally.”

Asked who was the second person he credited with building a lasting legacy of nonpartisanship in the Legislature’s professional staff, Welch said it was Klein. Initially a one-person office, the Office of Legislative Counsel steadily expanded over the years, with Russell hiring and training staffers along the way. Now, more than two dozen employees staff the office, according to the Legislature’s website.

“He was very practical and very fair, and I saw the benefit of that steadiness and professionalism, both in his work and the kind of staff that he hired and trained,” Welch said. “On a personal level, he was just a delightful individual — very, very competent, but also very humble and modest, despite the fact that he was a very revered figure in the Legislature by all parties. He’s a special person and made a special contribution to our state.”

Russell’s work in Montpelier brought him into contact with the National Conference of State Legislatures, a national organization in which he eventually landed the role of chair, which took him all around the world for various government and diplomatic work. He also was a professor of constitutional law and legislation at Vermont Law School.

Vermont’s Office of Legislative Counsel is by and large an understated one, evading bold headlines or attention-grabbing moves. Its staffers are unelected. But the office’s responsibilities are monumental, Symington said. It is, after all, often staffers’ written words that eventually become the letter of the law.

“At the end of a session … the last week or two can feel like, ‘How is this ever going to come together?’ You leave and you just think, ‘Phew, we did it,’” Symington said. “And then (Russell) is sitting there with his staff … coming in and saying, ‘OK, what happened? Where are the studies that we need to make happen? What happens next? How do we translate the work of the legislative session … into whatever comes next?”

Russell carried his steady nature outside of Statehouse walls. In Calais, he was a constant presence: moderating Town Meeting Day, chairing the school board, regularly singing in the Old West Church Christmas Choir, organizing a volleyball league that played together for more than a decade, his various bands playing in local gigs.

One of his volleyball teammates and bandmates was Geof Hewitt, who lived near Russell. The two met in the late 1970s, when Hewitt’s family moved to Maple Corner. The Russells welcomed them to the neighborhood with a pie.

As a neighbor, bandmate, teammate and friend, Hewitt could rely on Russell, he recalled to VTDigger. When Hewitt was unable to drive for a period of time, Russell would go out of his way to drive him to and from work every day.

“To him, that was nothing,” Hewitt said. “There was no pretense. He was just a very, very giving and sweet human being.”

“He was just such a natural sweetheart,” Hewitt said. “He was the ultimate kind, gentle friend. He was just there.”

James Alan Dorskind of Oakland passed away on August 12, 2023 after a long battle with Parkinson's Disease. Jim, son of Albert and Sue Dorskind, was born and raised in Los Angeles. In high school, despite never appearing in a game, Jim earned a varsity letter in football in the early days of personal computing by creating programs that mapped out the team's plays.

He went on to Cornell University where he was the coxswain for the crew team and then earned his law degree from the UC Berkeley School of Law. In 1983, he married his beloved Mary Rumsey Dorskind, and in 1998 Jim and Mary welcomed their son Paul, who was the light of their lives.
Jim started his law career at Morrison & Foerster and went on to Friedman, Ross & Dorskind. His proudest professional achievement was his work in the administration of President Bill Clinton, first as Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Correspondence and then as General Counsel for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and finally as General Counsel at the Department of Commerce. He also was active in numerous philanthropic activities, including being Chair of the Board of Trustees of St. Paul's School in Oakland.
Jim was predeceased by his wife Mary and by his parents. He is survived by his son Paul and his sister DeeDee Dorskind. He is also survived by brother-in-laws and their wives, Schuyler and Wilma Rumsey, Peter Rumsey and Anna Edmondson, and John Rumsey and Lisa Bransten and by his niece and nephews Julien, Sean, Hanna and George Rumsey and Jeremy and Justin Levey and Justin's wife Ashlee.

Actress Apple Hong has disclosed that her father died at the age of 76.

“Although I should be mentally prepared after seeing dad’s Parkinson’s disease getting worse over the years, I didn’t expect that July 22 would be the last time I saw him,” the Malaysia-born actress wrote on social media.

“There were missed opportunities, moments of helplessness and regrets, but Dad can now rest in peace. May I be able to meet my dad again in heaven someday.”

She ended the post with: “The dad I love 08.12.1946 - 11.08.2023.”

Dr. Pareed K. Mohamed, beloved husband, father, grandfather, physician, and friend, passed away with family and friends by his side in Oakland, California on August 8, 2023. Known as "Dr. Mo," "Pareed," and "Kochu," he grew up with nine brothers and sisters in Erattupetta, a small village in Kerala, India. Kochu graduated from Trivandrum Medical College, where he met his wife, Dr. Hezla Mohamed.

In 1974, embracing the opportunity provided by U.S. immigration policies that were newly welcoming foreign physicians, they emigrated to Detroit, Michigan, where their children were born. In 1980 they resettled in the sunnier climate of Covina, California, where they lived until they moved to Oakland in 2021. In Covina, Kochu built strong communities of friends and a thriving professional life. With his brother, Kochu set up a cardiology pr`actice in West Covina, where he became known both for his skills as a physician and his kind demeanor with patients and staff. He also thrived in leadership roles, serving as Chief of Cardiology at Inter-Community Medical Center in West Covina, and as Chief of Cardiology, Chief of Staff, and Chief of Internal Medicine at Queen of the Valley Hospital.

With several partners, Kochu revived a struggling hospital in West Covina and served as President of Doctors Hospital until 2013. Additionally, he served as a consultant for the California Medical Board, where he was involved with investigations pertaining to quality of care and malpractice issues. Kochu was deeply dedicated to his work and especially to his patients, so he suffered tremendous loss when he decided to close his practice and resign his Medical Board position after he was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. Kochu was an avid, deep, and wide reader whose interests ranged across literature and from science to poetry to mythology.

He was eclectic in his studies of ethics, morality, religion, and philosophy. He loved card games and staying up late into the night chatting with his family and friends; he took great pleasure in sweets and a good whiskey. He was a car enthusiast who enjoyed both short drives and long road trips whenever possible. He was affectionate and adoring of the people he loved, from his family to friends to his dear patients. He will be remembered as a boisterous personality, someone who relished a friendly argument, an informed and deliberate thinker, an open and fertile mind.

He is survived by Hezla, his wife of fifty-one years; his daughter Sonya and her husband Andrew Glazer and their children Billy and Zia; and his daughter Saira and her husband Nels Bangerter and their children Faaris and Sigrid.In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his memory 

Respected mathematician Dr. David Flannery, who was the father of acclaimed Cork singer-songwriter Mick, has died aged 71.

Dr. Flannery, a father of five, had helped found Munster Technological University's (MTU) (then Cork Institute of Technology’s) flagship engineering program and maths department, which he headed for some time.

He had suffered from Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a rare neurological condition that is similar to Parkinson's.

His wife, fellow academic Elaine, died aged 59 from metastatic cervical cancer in October 2014. Last year, Dr. Flannery settled a High Court action over the alleged misdiagnosis of her smear slide.

Dr. Áine Ní Shé said Dr. Flannery was a “fantastic mathematician and a fantastic teacher”. Dr. Ní Shé is MTU's Registrar and Vice President of Academic Affairs in the Cork campuses, and she took over as Head of the Department of Mathematics from Dr. Flannery in 2012.

Paying tribute, she said: “He was really honest. Integrity is a noun I associate with David. He had huge integrity and would always stand up for his principles. He was always trying to do the right thing.

“He was humble and was always quick to recognize other people’s work and identify talent. He was hugely generous with his knowledge, expertise, resources, and insights. He had an impact on thousands of students. It’s a sad day today.” 

Dr. Flannery joined the college in the 1970s and was instrumental in developing the college’s engineering program which proved key to building MTUs’ academic and professional reputation.

“MTU is now known as an engineering school of renown in Ireland," Dr Ní Shé said. “David was someone who left his mark on CIT/MTU. He was a fantastic mathematician, but also a fantastic pedagogue, and a fantastic teacher. 

"He was really dedicated to MTU producing top-quality candidates and he minded his students; he knew them by name. He was also key in driving the establishment of the mathematics department at CIT.

“He was Head of the Department from 2010 to 2012 and really put his stamp on it developing a good, sound curriculum. And he was a fantastic customer of the library, he was always looking for new knowledge.” 

Dr. Ní Shé said that his late wife Elaine was “a dearly loved colleague too”. She remembers them waiting for her in her new office with a vase of sunflowers when she took over from Mr. Flannery as head of the mathematics department. Mr. Flannery had thoroughly cleaned out his office for her and he had even put her name on the door, "with every fada correct" on her name.

“He called me one sunny May evening to say my office was ready and to come over. Elaine was there. They had a bunch of sunflowers in a vase on the table for me. I still have that vase. He had changed the name on the door to mine, with all the fadas perfect.

When they left, they walked off down the corridor into that warm May sunlight together like love’s young dream.

“She was diagnosed a short time later.” 

Mrs. Flannery, a microbiologist from Blarney in Cork, died of cervical cancer in 2014. A High Court action was settled last October, but the HSE did not admit liability after Dr. Flannery sued over his wife’s care. He criticized the HSE for never apologizing to the family.

Pat Ahern, who has been a close friend and colleague of Dr. Flannery’s for 53 years, met studying math in UCC in 1970. Mr. Ahern said Dr. Flannery was “an extraordinary man” who "was out of pain now."

They later worked together at Cork Regional Technical College which became CIT, now MTU.

“I knew him as a friend, as a man, and as an educationalist. As an educationalist, he always thought the subject was hugely important but that the students were of paramount importance.

“When we started there, we felt like pioneers. We were doing things that had not been done before, writing a syllabus and teaching it.

“He was an inspiration to his students and other teachers. He developed courses that were tailored to the student’s needs in their fields, like in engineering, but he also gave them space to investigate the side roads, if they were interested.” 

'He was kind'

Dr. Flannery was not long retired when his wife died, Mr. Ahern said.

“Elaine’s loss was an enormous blow. I was worried about him; he was like a shadow of himself. But he knew he had to move on. 

“He was a brilliant chess player. He caused me to give up because he would always win. He loved playing cards and was so good he was almost at a professional level. He loved building stone walls. He loved hurling and would support Tipperary, where his family was rooted.

He was kind, gentle, and had the most extraordinary intelligence I ever came across.

“He was dedicated to his family, to Elaine, to his new wife Ann, and to his children.

“He managed to fit a lot into his life and was still fascinated by everything right up to the end.”

David LaFlamme, whose electric violin helped introduce a new sound to San Francisco’s music scene in the 1960s and shaped one of the hits that captured the era’s spirit, “White Bird,” a dreamy meditation on breaking free, died Aug. 6 at a health-care facility in Santa Rosa, Calif. He was 82.

Mr. LaFlamme’s died of health problems related to Parkinson’s disease, said his daughter, Kira LaFlamme.

Mr. LaFlamme and members of his band, It’s a Beautiful Day, sampled from the mix of folk, rock and psychedelia in San Francisco as they shared gigs and swapped ideas with groups such as the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Mr. LaFlamme’s addition of the five-string electric violin — with driving crescendos and soulful adagio — brought flowing subtleties different than anything guitars or keyboards could match.

“White Bird” emerged as a collaboration with his then-wife and keyboardist, Linda Rudman, for the group’s debut album in 1969, “It’s a Beautiful Day” — a name taken from the joyful cry of a passing motorist one sunny afternoon. The song became the group’s signature work and part of the soundtrack of the 1960s from its opening harmony by Mr. LaFlamme and vocalist Pattie Santos:

White bird

In a golden cage

On a winter's day

In the rain

And then the song’s message as a refrain: “White bird must fly/Or she will die.”

Mr. LaFlamme, who also played guitar, described the song as a struggle between the pull of freedom and the compromises of conformity. “The white bird in a golden cage represents someone trying to break out of the constraints of the affluent middle class,” he later said.

The song’s setting — a dreary day as “leaves blow across the long black road” — was drawn from personal experience. Mr. LaFlamme and his wife were living in a Victorian house in Seattle during a series of performances in the winter of 1967-68, working on music in the attic with a Wurlitzer portable piano under a window. “We were looking out from the attic window over the street in front of this old house … It’s describing what I was seeing out the window,” Mr. LaFlamme wrote on his website.

At first, “White Bird” struggled to find an audience. It didn’t rise far on the charts and was a difficult fit for AM radio at the time because of its length, more than six minutes, and the novelty of Mr. LaFlamme’s violin solo in the middle. But FM stations, particularly the counterculture formats on college radio, embraced the song and the group as hippie troubadours, including other tracks from the album such as “Wasted Union Blues,” “Girl With No Eyes,” and the instrumental “Bombay Calling.”

“White Bird” gradually was adopted as part of the 1960s musical canon, and Mr. LaFlamme was credited as an influence on violinists including bluesman Papa John Creach and his work with Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna; Robby Steinhardt with the rock group Kansas, and Scarlet Rivera with Bob Dylan on songs such as “Hurricane,” released in 1976.

Over a career spanning more than five decades, Mr. LaFlamme showed no surprise that the violin found a niche alongside rock guitars and thumping bass lines.

“I think that the violin probably more than any other instruments closely mimics the voice and my first love was singing and the voice,” he said in a 1998 interview with music writer John Barthel, “and I think violin an extension, the closest extension of that.”

David LaFlamme was born on May 4, 1941, in New Britain, Conn., and spent much of his boyhood in Salt Lake City. His father worked in a copper mine, and his mother was a homemaker.

He received his first violin at 5 years old as a gift from an aunt and uncle, whose daughter lost interest in the instrument. “So I began fooling around with it on my own and taught myself to play ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,’” he recalled. His parents were impressed and arranged for a teacher, who introduced him to classical violinists and composition.

Mr. LaFlamme served in the Army in the early 1960s at Fort Ord, near Monterey, Calif., and was discharged after experiencing some hearing loss from test-firing weapons. He had spent time in San Francisco while on military leaves and headed back to the city in 1962 with a duffle bag — “mostly just Army clothes” — and a “few bucks in my pocket,” he told the music site Exposé in 2003.

He began jamming on guitar and violin in parks and clubs with musicians shaping the San Francisco sound: Jerry Garcia; Janis Joplin and Country Joe and the Fish. Mr. LaFlamme formed his first band, the Electric Chamber Orkustra, in 1966 and then was part of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks.

In the summer of 1967 — what became known as the “Summer of Love” — Mr. LaFlamme and his wife put together It’s a Beautiful Day with vocalist Santos, guitarist Hal Wagenet, bassist Mitchell Holman and drummer Val Fuentes.

A major break came in October 1968 when singer and guitarist Stevie Winwood of the band Traffic came down with a throat condition and couldn’t perform in a joint gig with Cream at the Oakland Coliseum. The concert promoter, Bill Graham, contacted It’s a Beautiful Day as a fill-in. A record deal with Columbia soon followed.

The group released its second album, “Marrying Maiden,” in 1970, which included Garcia playing banjo on the song “Hoedown” and pedal steel guitar on “It Comes Right Down to You.”

The band broke up in 1973 after two more albums and tours that included once opening for the Who in Paris. It’s a Beautiful Day was booed and the crowd started chanting “Tommy” for the Who’s 1969 album, Mr. LaFlamme recalled.

“The funny thing was,” he told the Salt Lake Tribune in 1983, “I wanted to hear the Who just as much as they did.”

A legal battle over ownership of the band’s name forced Mr. LaFlamme to build new groups under different banners, including Edge City. He released a solo album in 1976, “White Bird,” with a new version of the title song, which peaked at No. 89 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Over the next two decades, he was part of more than 10 other albums as a solo artist or under It’s a Beautiful Day after wrangles over the name ended.

His marriages, first to Linda Rudman and then Sharon Wilson, ended in divorce. He married singer Linda Baker in 1982. Survivors include two daughters, Kira LaFlamme from his first marriage and Alisha LaFlamme from his second, and six grandchildren.

The creation of “White Bird” took about two hours, said Mr. LaFlamme’s first wife. She worked on the chords while he crafted the lyrics. They shared duties on the melody.

“The song kept evolving, but that was the birth of ‘White Bird,’” she told the music site Please Kill Me in 2020. “When we finished after two hours, David and I looked at each other, and we knew we had a beautiful song.”

Australian karting legend John Pizarro OAM passed away earlier today after an extended battle with illness. He was 78.

Pizarro, a 15-time Australian kart champion and a leading Australian on the international scene back in the late 1970s/early 1980s, was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2019, following his induction into the Australian Motor Sport Hall of Fame a couple of years earlier for his services to the sport.

Less well-known by many kart and motorsport fans was JP’s 20-plus-year battle with Parkinson’s disease.

He was one of the first in Australia to undergo the then-revolutionary Deep Brain Stimulation surgery, involving electrode implants in the brain, to successfully relieve much of the symptoms of the incurable disease.

Via the Rotary Club in his hometown of Parkes, NSW, John worked to raise funds for research into the disease – while at the same time continuing, until quite recently, racing in Historic kart events here and in NZ, where he was a regular visitor.

An Asia-Pacific champion, Pizarro represented Australia in world kart championships five times, all with the iconic Italian DAP kart/engine manufacturers, which saw him competing alongside other DAP stars of the time such as Terry Fullerton and a teenage Ayrton Senna, before the young Brazilian burst onto the car racing scene.

After his international exploits, Pizarro moved into the manufacture of karts, his ‘Sprinter’ brand very much in demand, built and sold from premises in Parkes, and was a track advisor and inspector for Karting Australia.

Among those to have known the Aussie karting legend well, Craig Baird – former multiple kart and Carrera Cup champion, these days Drivers Standards Officer for Supercars – said:

“I was a young kart racer, in Auckland, when JP came over to race and I was struck not just by his ruthless competitiveness,” he said.

“But also that he was just a genuinely good guy – he’d jump in and help anybody. Later on, we became, and stayed, very good mates. It’s a sad day.”

Chris Lambden, also a long-time friend and former karting rival of Pizarro’s, added:

“While his karting career and input are well-documented and his success well-deserved, his handling of and fight with Parkinson’s, and his fund-raising for research, is what separates him from the rest of us,” Lambed said.

“It’s gone on for over 20 years … I’ve never ever met a tougher, more determined so-an-so – and that’s outside of racing … Helluva guy.”

Pizarro is survived by his wife Marilyn and four daughters – Kristine, Lisa, Annette, and Narelle.

Jack Burton was one of Norwich’s great characters. His son Trevor has paid a heartfelt tribute to a legend who will be missed by many. 

Norwich's bus-driving Methodist minister and author the Rev. Jack Burton has died at the age of 83. 

The father of three – who served as Sheriff of Norwich in 1988/89 – died at his city center home on Tuesday, August 1 following a long struggle with Parkinson's disease. 

Born on Marion Road, Thorpe Hamlet, in 1939, Mr. Burton was the eldest in a large family – he had nine half-brothers and sisters. 

A pupil at the City of Norwich School, he was drawn to the church as a teenager by American evangelist Billy Graham, and studied theology at Handsworth College, Birmingham. 

By then, he had already spotted his future wife Molly from his pulpit while preaching at St Faith's Methodist Chapel, where they subsequently married in 1961.  

He relished a challenging start to his full-time ministry when posted to the tough Govan area of Glasgow in 1963. Two years later he moved to the small Fenland town of Littleport, near Ely.  

He became disillusioned with organized religion and pushed to become a 'worker-priest', eventually gaining permission from a highly reluctant Methodist Church to earn his living as an Eastern Counties bus driver whilst continuing his ministry.  

It was a decision which forced him and his young family to vacate their church-owned home and saw him move back to Norwich in 1969, living at Colegate for more than 50 years.  

He was a familiar figure not only in the pulpit but in his bus cab, his booming voice, toothy grin and impressive whiskers made him difficult to miss. 

In the early 1970s, he founded the Norwich Over the Water group, which sought to protect the city north of the Wensum from further over-development.  

The group's achievements included saving the Golden Star pub from demolition during the widening of Duke Street; this atoned for an earlier mishap when he clipped the pub with his bus while turning right out of Colegate. 

A talented writer, Mr. Burton was the author of several books, the most notable being his prizewinning 'Transport of Delight' (1976), the diary of a year in his role as a worker-priest. The launch event involved him driving a double-decker through the Erpingham Gate into The Cathedral Close.  

Another volume was entitled 'The Wonder of Buses and Trams', while other works included poetry, a children's story, and an unpublished history of Norwich Over the Water. 

He was for many years a regular columnist for the Eastern Daily Press, and viewed these short pieces as some of his best work. 

He worshiped regularly at Norwich Cathedral, but his own ministry was based around three churches – all non-Methodist - on Colegate. These were St George's, the Old Meeting House, and, most notably, the redundant St Clement's, opposite his home.  

He leased St Clement's from the Norwich Historic Churches Trust in the mid-70s, raising funds to keep it open for around 25 years as a place for personal prayer and reflection. He frowned on the trend for gutting the interiors of the city's churches to find alternative uses, and St Clement's is today the only one of Norwich's redundant medieval churches to retain its interior furnishings. 

His Christmas Eve midnight masses at St Clement's achieved near legendary status as pub-goers filed in from the adjacent Mischief Tavern, often somewhat the worse for wear. He reciprocated by donning his cassock to conduct popular Christmas carol sing-a-longs at the Mischief and the Ribs of Beef.  

He was also a chaplain at Norwich School of Art. 

A lifelong Labour Party supporter and campaigner, Mr. Burton courted controversy before one general election when he hung a large banner proclaiming 'Good Christians know where to put their cross' on the railings of St Clement's.  

A willing champion for the underdog, he worked tirelessly to help anyone whom he felt had been treated shabbily by authority. 

He was a dedicated trade unionist, and in 1972 and 1973 served as Transport and General Workers' Union branch chair. One dispute culminated in him reluctantly leading Norwich's busmen out on a one-day strike. Yet 20 years later he was elected on to the Eastern Counties Buses board. 

Mr. Burton was proud to serve as Sheriff of Norwich in 1988/89, forming a notable double-act with Lord Mayor David Bradford.  

The year's packed programme of civic engagements led him and Molly to forge lifelong friendships with David and Thelma Bradford. One of Mr. Burton's last public appearances was to deliver the address at Mr. Bradford's funeral in 2021. 

He was fascinated by buses from an early age.  

He worked as an office boy for Eastern Counties after leaving school at 16 and boasted a large and carefully cataloged collection of rare bus photographs in red-bound albums.  

His many other interests included bird watching, butterflies and moths, and the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan.  

He took a close interest in the fortunes of Norwich City, and never quite forgave Luton Town for ending the club's fabled 1958/59 FA Cup run at the semi-final stage. Forty years on he drove surviving team members on an open-top bus tour of Norwich, and in 2004 he conducted the funeral of long-serving former club chairman Geoffrey Watling at the Old Meeting House. 

He retired after a stroke in 2002 and suffered a series of further health issues during his later years.  

He was due to receive the Maundy money from the Queen in 2020, but the ceremony at Windsor Castle was canceled due to the pandemic. On a happier note, in 2021 he and Molly celebrated their diamond wedding. 

Mr. Burton is survived by wife Molly; children Trevor, Linda, and Jeanette; granddaughters Natasha and Serena; and three-month-old great-grandson Wesley. 

Stephen J. Atkins, 78, passed away on August 1, 2023, ending his battle with Parkinson’s disease.

Steve was born July 12, 1945, in Dayton, Ohio, the son of Harry and Adamae (Rice) Atkins. In high school, he was an avid baseball player and dreamed of being in the big leagues. He performed in school plays, learning skills that would serve him well in his later “performances” in public life. He received his bachelor’s (1969) and master’s degrees (1974) from the University of Dayton. It was a combination of working in city hall in the mailroom while in college, and watching his fireman father, that inspired Steve to turn to public service and pursue his Masters in Public Administration.

Steve held city management roles in Escondido, CA, West Hartford, CN, Norton Shores, MI, Eau Claire, WI and Schaumberg, IL before coming to Iowa City in 1986 and becoming the City Manager there for the next 21 years, a tenure unheard of for many managers especially in an intellectually involved community like Iowa City. Steve oversaw numerous large projects—new sewer and water plants, the transformation of downtown, and many others—and managed the public response to a tornado, a flood, and acts of violence. He was beloved by city staff (at least most of them) for his ability to listen, consider new ideas, and be decisive when needed. Steve knew the names of all 500+ employees and was known for his philosophy of “management by walking around”; his door was always open.

Steve was a mentor to many, from job advice to how to tie a tie. Former Mayor Matt Hayek said of Steve: “He was a good man and a mentor to me. I remember meeting him not quite 40 years ago. Our families went out for dinner. Little did I know that at the end of his career, he would teach me a thing or two about local government. What a legacy he left his community.”

When not dealing with public issues, Steve loved raising his daughter, April, and seeing her become a young woman and have a family of her own. His granddaughter, Olivia, is Papa’s treasure. He consumed his quiet moments with painting and reading American history. And then there was baseball. Steve played on the City baseball team as a catcher. Though not his dream of the MLB, he enjoyed games played at the North Side diamond and at the ball field on Mormon Trek. Other spare time activities included serving on the Board of the Johnson County Community Foundation and the United Way of Johnson and Washington Counties.

Stephen is survived by his daughter, April; his son-in-law Rod Neuzil of Iowa City; April’s mother, Judy Atkins; his granddaughter, Olivia; his sister, Susan Atkins Dlouhy of Rockville, MD; his life partner, Karin Franklin of Iowa City; and nieces, nephews, and cousins.

He was preceded in death by his parents, his brother, Michael, and his very special grandfather, Mark Rice.

Roger Thibault, who was legally joined with Theo Wouters in Quebec’s first same-sex civil union, has died.

He passed away at their home in Pointe-Claire in Wouters’s arms. They had been together for 50 years.

Thibault was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease six years ago. Wouters cared for him at their home until the end. He died from complications from the disease. He was 77 years old.

“He was the kindest man, and he loved me to bits,” Wouters said. “Even in his last moments, he really loved me, and I loved him.

“I have so much to treasure in my memories with him.”

On July 18, 2002, Wouters and Thibault became the first same-sex couple to be legally joined by civil union in Quebec, two years before the province would legalize same-sex marriage.

In an interview with the Montreal Gazette on the 20th anniversary of their union, the couple said they had no idea what a momentous occasion it would turn out to be until they arrived at the Montreal courthouse, greeted by a throng of photographers and reporters. Strangers rushed across the street to bring them a bottle of wine. Lawyers and clerks lined the upper levels of the courthouse to get a glimpse of the historic moment.

After years of advocacy, the civil union had been established by the Quebec government a month earlier. Since same-sex couples still couldn’t legally wed, it worked as an option that would give them many of the same legal benefits as married couples.

The civil union would soon be overtaken in popularity by same-sex marriage, but it was hailed at the time as a progressive step forward for the province.

“(Quebec) became one of the first places in the world to put forward that two people of the same sex could legally unite together, sharing the same rights and obligations,” said Patrick Desmarais, president of Montreal’s Fondation Émergence, which specializes in fighting homophobia and transphobia, on the 20th anniversary of the union. “And it brought on this push for equality between all people.

“I think it did a lot to educate and sensitize the general public in Quebec and Canada,” Desmarais added. “It really opened the public’s eyes to the fact that it could be possible, and could be legal, and that two people of the same sex uniting didn’t change anything in anyone else’s lives.”

For Wouters and Thibault, the union was largely symbolic after nearly three decades together, beginning when the two met at a gay bar on Mackay St. in Montreal. But they felt it had to be done as part of the greater good, and to send a message.

“At first we said we don’t really need to get married,” Wouters said. “We were already committed in life. But then we thought it over because we were so well known.”

Once it was done, Wouters said, they were also happy to be protected by the same laws that applied to other couples, “because we had been hearing so many horror stories when families get involved when one partner dies.”

Ironically, the couple’s historic union was born partly of hatred. They had been the subject of homophobic slurs, insults, and threats for over a decade, which ultimately spurred a march outside their Pointe-Claire home that drew thousands who showed their support of the couple. That would lead to the creation of the International Day Against Homophobia, and their civil union.

“We were sort of forced to do so because of the situation here,” Wouters said. “It lasted for 10 years, this horrible, horrible hatred — I still cannot believe that people can hate for absolutely nothing.”

While the union brought them fame and accolades, Wouters noted that the hatred continued, and still does to this day. The current political climate, particularly in the United States, means that “we have to be very vigilant that this doesn’t slip into Canada,” he said.

When they first met, Wouters, who is of Dutch heritage, didn’t speak a word of French, and Thibault couldn’t speak any English. So they communicated by sign language, and a relationship that would last half a century was born. Wouters was a fashion designer, creating clothes and hats for Canada’s rich and famous. Thibault was a photographer, working in the department of industrial design and architecture at the Université de Montréal.

“We were quite committed from Day One,” Wouters said. “We were very much aware that we were blessed because, in the gay community, it is not a usual thing for people to stay together for so long.”

The union stayed strong in part because they shared many projects together, including collecting more than 140 tons of rock “from everywhere” to create their elaborate garden in Pointe-Claire.

“When you do projects together in everything, as part of your daily activities, then you have a much better chance to really stay a lifetime together,” Wouters said.

Another project became battling homophobia, which would cost them countless hours, over $240,000 in legal fees, and the loathing of people they had never met.

“It was difficult sometimes to scrape the funds together to pay the lawyers, but we managed,” Wouters said.

In May of this year, Thibault and Wouters were made honorary citizens of Montreal in recognition of their decades-long fight to advance LGBTQ2+ rights.

“We’re very happy that it inspired so many people. We never thought that that would be the case,” Wouters said. “But it was the case.”