ROBERT E. MORRISON July 14, 1947 – July 21, 2019
Robert E. Morrison died July 21, 2019, at home in Los Alamos seventy-two years and one week after his birth on July 14, 1947, in Logan, Utah.
His family moved often and he had been enrolled in thirteen schools by the time they returned to Los Alamos for Bob’s high school years. As a member of Bob Cox’s track team, he set the LAHS pole vault record in 1965, a mark that held until 1993. Bob walked down to Sullivan Field during practice to congratulate the young man who broke it.
After serving in Vietnam during the 1968 Tet Offensive Bob joined the Army Airborne Rangers where he learned to love moving stealthily through wild terrain and jumping out of perfectly good airplanes that were due to land in a few minutes. He loved to sneak up behind friends and family and snarl like a cougar. It was heart stopping for the victim, delightful for Bob.
Bob met and married Dee Thomas ( we always joked that it was an arranged marriage) and earned a degree in Engineering Management from Idaho State University. He then worked for his Dad’s company building and maintaining remote sensing snow gauges in the Idaho mountains. In 1982 Bob moved his family to Los Alamos (for which we are all grateful) to work in the IT Division at LANL. He also worked part/time for Learning Tree International and later for Dash Courses teaching computer classes all over the world. He loved teaching but eventually, his failing health made the traveling too difficult.
Though he loved scuba diving and fly fishing and woodworking, his family was always most important to him, and he loved keeping the home fires burning, literally and figuratively. His wife will miss those lovely fires already warming the living room when she gets up in the morning.
Bob’s father Rod, mother Jean, and brother Allan pre-deceased him. He is survived by his wife of forty-eight years, Dee, his daughter Jeni (Ken) and his sons Tim and Tyler (Amie-June), and by his brother Jim and his sister-in-law Lynn, and by his grandchildren Taylor, Gareth, and a baby boy arriving soon.
Bob taught us all to take care of ourselves, but we will miss knowing he was always there providing those little extras that made us feel loved and cared for.
Please visit Robert’s memorial webpage at: www.riverafamilyfuneralhome.com Rivera Funerals and Cremations of Los Alamos, 1627 A Central Ave, Los Alamos, NM 87544 (505) 663-6880.
