Obituaries
Please alert us to the recent death of any other Rhodes Scholar by emailing communications@rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk.
Michael Blanchard Cook, 79, died peacefully at home in Falls Church Virginia on May 27, with his wife, children, and grandchildren by his side. He leaves an extraordinary legacy of public service, athletic accomplishments, and family.
Mike was born in 1942 to Gerhard Cook (an industrial chemist) and Lura Cook (teacher and community leader). They moved to a farm in Clarence, NY when he was in primary school. He worked long hours for a local farmer and actually started driving a tractor by the time he was 9. After graduating from high school in 1959 he matriculated at Swarthmore College, where he played football and was captain of the wrestling team, as well as serving in student government. After a graduate year at Princeton he won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University’s New College. (The selection committee was particularly impressed that he knew how to milk a cow.) At Oxford he played rugby, learned how to conduct himself at a sherry party, and graduated with a B. Phil. Degree in 1966.
From early on, Mike felt a strong pull toward public service, inspired by his mother’s family and by President Kennedy. He joined the Foreign Service and arranged a detail to the counter-insurgency effort in Vietnam (1966-68). He subsequently served as a foreign service officer in Udorn, Thailand. Looking for a chance to have greater impact, he took a position with the Environmental Protection Agency in 1973, then a new organization with enormous responsibilities created by Congressional legislation. He was promoted to the Senior Executive Service in 1979 and went on to serve as the first director of the Superfund Program and then to implement and direct our nation’s vital federal programs in drinking water, wastewater treatment, and hazardous waste.
He received numerous awards during his 40+ years in the federal service, including Distinguished Federal Executive Award from President Reagan in 1987, and the Distinguished Career Service Award at the time of his retirement in 2006. But the most meaningful acknowledgment has come from scores of co-workers who have written to him in the last few months, telling of their admiration for his dedication and ability, and how much they had learned from him. He once said that much of his job as a manager was teaching. There was a range of lessons -- his political bosses needed to know the substance of environmental regulation, his subordinates needed to know how to write an effective memo.
While in Vietnam, Mike met and eventually married Le Thi Kim Oanh, an advisor hired by the U.S. government to improve the Vietnamese government’s social and refugee services. Kim Oanh was from a prominent Vietnamese family with a BA from the University of Tennessee. Mike likes to tell the story of the night he proposed to her. He was carrying a 357 magnum while driving on a deserted road made hazardous by landmines and Vietcong, but he is confident that she would have said yes if he had been unarmed. Her father was not pleased that she married a foreigner, but ultimately Mike was instrumental in helping him, his wife, and many of their nine children resettle and become successful professionals in Northern Virginia, California, North Carolina, Montreal and Ottawa. The marriage that began under such dicey circumstances became a great love story, lasting over 55 years.
Athletics were always an important part of Mike’s life. After joining EPA and settling in Falls Church in 1973, he got caught up in the new endurance-sports craze. He ran 38 marathons in all, some under 3 hours, and qualified for and ran in the Boston Marathon in 1986. Cross-training became necessary after a knee injury, and soon he was riding the 15 miles to the office and back every day. (He carried his dress shirt with him and had several suits at the office.) He taught himself long-distance swimming and ultimately became a serious contender in over 200 triathlons, qualifying and participating in the 2000 Ironman Triathlon World Champions in Kona, Hawaii. That year’s Ironman was hot with winds high enough to knock some racers off or their bikes, making the 140.6 miles of swimming, biking, and running especially challenging. He said his greatest accomplishment was that he did not need the services of the medical tent after finishing.
Following retirement, Mike continued to train and compete, and continued to serve. He and other community leaders were instrumental in helping Kim’s organization, the Vietnamese Resettlement Association, with grantwriting, fundraising, and teaching citizenship classes to help her clients prepare for naturalization exams. Another important volunteer opportunity was helping found and then chair a non-profit, the Green Infrastructure Center, that advises cities on mitigating the damages of climate change through appropriate plantings. And in recent years he worked with the EPA Alumni Association to mitigate the rollback of environmental regulation by the previous Presidential administration. But much of his free time was devoted to helping with his four grandchildren. He took great delight in their successes in the classroom and soccer field, and they in turn adored him.
Mike is survived by his wife of 53 years, Kim Cook; his son Arthur Van Cook and wife Rocio Cook, and their children Lura and Mikey; his son Benjamin Lê Cook and wife Madeline Fraser Cook, and their children Alex and Lily; brother Alan and his wife Bonny, their son Andrew and his wife Melissa, and their grandsons Matthew and Mason; brother Stephen and wife Linda, and their son Gordon and wife Golnaz, and son James and his partner Colin; brother Philip and wife Judith, their daughter Elizabeth Camden, and their son Brian and his wife Kim DeFeo, grandchildren Clara and Warren. Mike is also survived by six sisters-in-law and their families.
In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in Mike’s name to the Vietnamese Resettlement Association using the following link: https://gofund.me/50729ed7.
Paul attended Elkhart High School where he captained varsity basketball for the Blue Blazers. He went on to play center and captain for the North Carolina Tar Heels. His basketball prowess and academic achievements led him to Oxford, England, as a Rhodes Scholar in 1955. During his time at Oxford, he met and married Shelagh Crosbie and together they moved to California where Paul took a job as an engineer. Paul had a varied career, working primarily in the computer and communications sectors, during which he patented several telecommunication applications.
Paul devoted his considerable talents to philanthropy and was officially recognized by several organizations for his generosity. His various charitable activities included writing and reading stories to underprivileged children in Connecticut and giving scholarships to the Elkhart school system.
Suzanne Corley had been part of the WWOZ (the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Radio Station) family since 2002, and over the last decade was the host of the World Journey and Tudo Bem shows on Saturdays, and for many years was the host, for half the year, of the Thursday afternoon Jazz from the French Market show. She was also a regular host of WWOZ's annual live broadcast from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
She was an athlete, a Rhodes Scholar, a writer and novelist, and a teacher who spoke and taught many languages.
Alan attended Rutgers University and went on to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a second Bachelors and a Masters Degree. He then served as a First Lieutenant in Air Force Intelligence, stationed at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, returning to the States to attend Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Lincoln's Inn Society.
Alan was employed for forty years at the Harter, Secrest and Emery Law Firm. In 2006 he received the County Bar Association's Rodenback Award, given in recognition of his skill as a lawyer and the content of his character.
Alan joined a large number of pro bono boards, in many cases serving at one time or another as President: the Visiting Nurse Service, the Rochester Area Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Lewis Street Center, the Rochester Presbyterian Home, Trustee of Third Presbyterian Church, the Chamber of Commerce, the Highlands at Pittsford, the YMCA, the Boy Scouts of America, the Al Sigl Center, the Monroe County Bar Association, the United Way of Greater Rochester, Kirkhaven, Lifespan, and the Strong Museum of Play, of which he was a Founding Trustee. He was also a twenty-three year member of the University of Rochester Medical Center board.
We are saddened by the news of Francis' passing. He studied Modern History at the University of Oxford.
Muhammad “Max” Zahir. Physician. Author. Rhodes Scholar. Mentor. Born Nov. 7, 1936, in Ludhiana, India; died March 20, 2021, in Kamloops, of bone marrow cancer; aged 84.
Max never celebrated a birthday as a child. In India during the 1930s, it was not customary to issue a birth certificate and no one in the family took it upon themselves to make note of it otherwise. It was never an issue for Max, until his medical school application had a birth date requirement. Many visits to government offices eventually secured a declaration that would suffice. As the top high-school graduate in his year, this would be the only barrier he faced to attend the prestigious King Edward Medical University in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1953.
After graduating with a specialty in pathology, Max became a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. His dissertation on wound healing earned him a Doctor of Philosophy, the respect of his supervising professors and a research post.
Max’s leadership and self-effacing demeanour was warmly welcomed by his hospital colleagues. The Moncton winters, however, did not offer a similar welcome. Before a move to milder climes occurred, his third child, Suzanna Kate was born. In 1974, Max moved his family to Kamloops, where he began 28 years of service to Royal Inland Hospital.
Max made it a priority during retirement to chronicle the years when the Partition of India destroyed the early years of his life. Max was 11 in 1947 but he remembers it as a time of unrelenting bloodshed and violence. On a train escaping to Pakistan, Max witnessed the abduction of his sister. The family never saw her again. While it was heart-wrenching to write of this tumultuous episode in South-Asian history, Max persevered and in 2011 published his book 1947: A Memoir of Indian Independence.
Until the very end, Max showed an unequivocal appreciation for the opportunities life so generously afforded him. His family said their final goodbyes as dawn greeted the first day of spring. When we held him for the last time, there was a modicum of comfort knowing that as he left us new life surrounded us.
David graduated from Mount Allison University in 1967, attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 1969, and graduated from Dalhousie Medical School in 1973. Family Medicine was the bedrock of David's long, impactful, professional career. He was dedicated to the worth and value of compassionate, patient and relationship centred care. An avid reader and original thinker, he embraced narrative medicine, the deep understanding of the person with their unique story, beliefs and values, as the path to healing in the day to day work of family doctors.
'The universe is made not of atoms, but of stories.'
He began practice in Fredericton, NB, in 1973, and joined the Department of Family Medicine at Dalhousie University in 1978 as a leader in continuing medical education, and care of the elderly. Although he held many other posts, he kept his Dalhousie faculty appointment the rest of his life. As Professor and Head of Dalhousie Family Medicine from 1987 - 1995, he led and taught through understanding and gentle challenge - his motto 'When we tell a person something, we remove their chance to discover it themselves'. He asked astute questions, encouraged and supported people to discover their own answers. Kind, humble and patient, he delighted in the achievements of those he mentored. A timeless sense of duty, instilled by his parents, shaped his approach to life and work. David was always ready to lend a hand and most happy when he felt he was contributing.
Alasdair attended Queen Elizabeth High School, in Halifax, before taking a B.A. with First Class Honours at Dalhousie University. Alasdair won the Governor General's Gold Medal in 1956 and was also awarded the Rhodes Scholarship. He received a B.A. and a B. Phil. from Oxford University before moving on to Harvard, where he earned his Ph.D.
Alasdair taught Economics at Dalhousie from 1961 to 1994, focusing on Macroeconomics and International Trade. In 1982 he became Dalhousie's first elected Chair of the Senate, and from 1983 to 1988 he was Vice-President Academic and Provost. He was made Professor Emeritus in 1995, and in 'retirement,' he continued to lecture, served on the Dalhousie Board of Governors, sat on numerous boards and committees, and did consulting work all over the world.
Chris studied English and Philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand, and went on to study at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar where he was awarded an MA in English Language and Literature. He went on to Rhodes University where he was a professor of poetry with the Institute for the Study of English in Africa. Chris founded Wordfest, a national multilingual festival of South African languages and literature with a developmental emphasis.
Chris wrote poetry for publication, performance, and multi-media presentation using the graphics of modern technology (created by artist Julia Skeen, Chris's wife). His work appeared in a wide range of journals, textbooks and anthologies in South Africa and abroad. His many publications include First Poems (Bateleur Press, 1979), New Shades (David Philip,1982), Kites (David Philip, 1992), Mann Alive! (David Philip, 1992), South Africans (University of Natal Press, 1996) and Heartlands (University of Natal Press, 2002).
Chris was an active member of the Hall Writers’ Forum. He posted his Valediction to Seamus Heaney there, as a contribution to our National Poetry Day commemorative event in 2013 – it was read movingly by his sister beside the candle-lit well in the front quad, and subsequently published in the Oxford Magazine.