In a tragic off-road jeep accident in Arizona, Dr. Richard Crowe lost his life earlier this week.
Read the Hawaii Tribune news item.
The University of Hawaii at Hilo has a nice ‘In Memorium’ article on Rick’s accomplished life.
Rick was one of a group of three Western students who graduated with Honors BSc. in Astronomy at Western in 1974, along with Chuck MacDonald and Henry Leparskas.
Rick’s MSc on the topic of stellar evolution was done with supervisor Dr. Romas Mitalas at Western.
In my mind, Rick was wonderful mix astronomer and musician, as if Glenn Gould decided to step into Carl Sagan’s skin. Rick taught me to love classical music, and I recall being dumb struck when hearing his copy of Sibelius’ 2nd Symphony for the first time.
Rick was a consummate musician, and music permeated his entire life. But, man, his tastes were ecclectic. You could just as easily hear him clapping time to “5/4 Getaway” as listening to Holst’s “Planets”.
Rick, along with fellow roomy and grad student Arno Krautter started the ‘Ziff – Caw’ table bangers, who would entertain students and faculty alike in the coffee lounge in the old house on Western Road (where SSB now stands).
Rick loved hockey. We would all get together to play at the newly opened Thompson arena. The best skater and player by far was Mike Marlborough. Rick’s problem was not in attaining great speed on skates, but it was losing the speed that challenged him the most. Hence, we were glad that he wore one of those new fangled hockey helmet thingies (in blue).
I recall that Rick was really at a loss as to what to do for a career, whether to go one for a PhD or not.. By that time I was in Calgary, with my love of the Rockies having been ignited by a road trip out west that Rick, my brother Len, and I took in 75.
So, he decided to be resident astronomer at U.of T’s 24 scope in Chile. The most amazing thing, and recall that this is in the days before internet, was that Rick would be observing, high in the Andes, on these super clear nights, with music blasting out of the dome. On some of these nights he took the time to send his friends tape recorded messages. These were extremely entertaining, and highly prized. As I recall, Arno and I recorded at least one to send back to Chile.
I hope that you get to take the time to read the news articles about Rick’s amazing accomplishments.
Sadly for me, Rick contacted me several years ago, and in the crazy rush of raising a young family, I did not find the time to reply.
We are all going to miss you Rick!
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