The Memorial Wall

Dr. Ross Sugar, a loving husband, dedicated father, fantastic friend and accomplished physician, passed away in Baltimore on September 18, 2023, at home, surrounded by his family. He leaves behind a legacy of love, laughter, and a life enthusiastically lived.

Born on February 8, 1960, at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, Ross was the beloved son of Jack and Judy Sugar. He grew up in Garrett Park, Maryland, surrounded by sisters who adored him and a broader family who cherished him dearly. During his youth, he displayed a natural aptitude for math and science, and a love for athletics, excelling in tennis, golf, and running.

Ross had a lifelong bond with tight-knit groups of friends from high school and college. His friends appreciated his humor, kindness, sense of adventure, and enthusiasm for life. He was there to support and help any friend, anytime, anywhere, for whatever they needed. His friendships endured throughout the years, until the very end.

Ross attended Charles W. Woodward High School in Rockville and Duke University, where he earned a degree in mathematics. His passion for learning led him to a career in programming, where he met his future wife, Julie, who worked on his software development team. Their love story began at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in California, where they shared a passion for travel, humor, and calculus, and embarked on a journey that would define their lives.

They married in 1990 in Baltimore, surrounded by family and friends. Throughout their marriage, Ross and Julie supported each other professionally, challenged each other intellectually, and never stopped making each other laugh. They enjoyed traveling the world together and shared a passion for restoring old houses, renovating 8 of the 9 homes they owned together. Julie’s pragmatic nature complemented Ross’s visionary outlook, and she excelled at turning Ross’s ideas into reality. Everyone who knew them was aware of their deep respect, reverence, and love for each other.

During his first career, Ross had the privilege of working on many exciting projects, including some at NASA, where he contributed to cutting-edge scientific endeavors. However, he felt a calling for a new adventure and craved to follow closer in his physicist father's footsteps. At the age of 34, he embarked on a second career by enrolling in medical school.

His dedication and brilliance were evident as he achieved the highest grade in the country on his subspecialty boards, winning him the Elkin’s award. As a pain management doctor and exceptional diagnostician, Ross was known for his analytical mind. His scientific approach to medicine enabled him to unravel complex medical mysteries. In his residency, after lamenting the lack of quick-reference books for PM&R (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) residents, he co-authored one using his own personal notes and drawings. Called the “PM&R Pocketpedia,” it is used by medical residents across the country.

His patients admired and adored him, recognizing his caring and compassionate nature. He had a “no shortcuts” approach to patient care and pain management that resulted in him being voted Baltimore’s Top Doctor many times. His professional journey took him all over the country, including to Los Angeles, Atlanta, Richmond, and Baltimore.

Ross first became a father while in medical school, and was incredibly proud of his children, Kirsten and Nevin, whom he cherished above all else. Parenthood was a central part of his life and he believed it was the most important thing he would do. He coached his son’s sports teams and participated in his daughter’s nightly piano practices, never missing a night. He was their emotional mentor, confidante, and biggest supporter, never missing a single game, show, or event and always answering every phone call.

Dr. Ross Sugar had a lifelong thirst for mastery and knowledge. He played the guitar and violin, enjoyed golfing, tennis, running, skiing, and hiking, and had a diverse set of ever rotating hobbies and pursuits. His retirement allowed him to explore these interests fully and start up new ones. He took up drumming, drawing, and songwriting. He and his sister Erica took boxing lessons together. He edited scientific papers and even wrote a horror screenplay in his later years.

Even after his Parkinson’s diagnosis at 54, he was obsessed with pushing his body and his endurance to their limits. He cycled (he preferred the hills), continued to ski (the steepest black diamonds), climbed mountains (at the age of 53, he and three friends climbed part of Mt. Ranier), and undertook long distance hiking (he walked 500 miles on foot from New York City to Toronto over the course of months in early retirement to raise money for Parkinson’s research). He was fascinated with achieving peak physical fitness and was constantly reading books and researching in pursuit of this goal.

Music was an equally integral part of his life. He was a true aficionado of classic rock and classical music. His ability to identify songs and artists was unmatched and he wasn’t afraid to shed a tear over a powerful chord or a moving lyric.

He had a satirical, self-deprecating sense of humor, and a glimmer in his eye that always made you feel in on the joke (he was a master joke teller, often in character). He had a talent for giving moving toasts and telling engaging stories.

Ross was a dreamer, always brimming with new ideas that he eagerly shared with those around him. He also had a knack for explaining complex things in understandable terms. He was a charming and gentle soul, who had a talent for making others feel like they were the most interesting person in the room. He was open-minded and had an insatiable curiosity, always eager to learn new things.

Dr. Ross Sugar's legacy will live on in the hearts of his family, friends, and the countless lives he touched through his medical practice. His unconditional love, boundless humor, and infectious excitement for life will be remembered with reverence and gratitude.

He leaves behind his wife Julie, his children Kirsten and Nevin (and wife Hilal), his sisters Eve Clancy (and husband Tom) and Erica Sugar (and husband Bobby), his nephew Sam, his uncle Don Blumberg, his aunt Judy Brodsky, his cousins Karen Sledge and Rich Belzer, his sisters-in-law Georgia VanBeck, Linda Kacur (and husband John), and brother-in-law Bob Rappold (and wife Barbara). Ross is also survived by many loving nieces and nephews and countless dear friends.

Fernando Botero, a Colombian artist who developed a signature style painting rotund, inflated yet sensuous figures with a whimsical or satirical edge, and who branched into monumental sculptures that adorned some of the world’s most famous boulevards, died September 15th, 2023 at a hospital in Monaco. He was 91.

Mauricio Vallejo, a co-owner of the Art of the World gallery in Houston and a close friend of Mr. Botero’s, confirmed the death and said the artist had pneumonia and Parkinson’s disease.

Mr. Botero’s aesthetic — often shorthanded as Boterismo — became a major draw at contemporary art museums and decorated the Champs-Élysées in Paris, Park Avenue in New York, Madrid’s Paseo de Recoletos and other renowned thoroughfares, as well as parks and plazas from Buenos Aires to Moscow to Tokyo. His emblematic oversized figures helped turn global attention to Latin American artists in the second half of the 20th century.

With deadpan irreverence, he scoured Colombia’s bourgeois urban scenes for imagery of extravagance, pomposity and greed. Mr. Botero early in his career seized on sharp visual contrasts: Tiny snakes, parrots, flies and bananas adorn his portraits of blimpy bullfighters, bishops, prostitutes, acrobats, ballroom dancers and politicians. Men with rotund faces sport tiny mustaches; hefty ladies smoke miniature cigarettes.

His figures on the canvas and cast in bronze were often voluptuous and slyly fanciful, although he would turn later to darker themes inspired by current events, such as drug violence in Colombia and torture at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Mr. Botero’s work was highly popular and could fetch millions of dollars. Critics, however, especially in the 1960s, did not always approve of his work. Some dismissed it as gimmickry or caricature. An ARTnews reviewer once belittled his enlarged figures as “fetuses begotten by Mussolini on an idiot peasant woman.”

Edward J. Sullivan, a New York University professor who specializes in Latin American contemporary art, traced such animosity to the humor and accessibility of Mr. Botero’s public art installations, which challenged an establishment that often embraced inscrutability and jealously guarded its gatekeeper role.

“My popularity has to do with the divorce between modern art, where everything is obscure, and the viewer who often feels he needs a professor to tell them whether it’s good or not,” Mr. Botero told the Los Angeles Times. “I believe a painting has to talk directly to the viewer, with composition, color and design, without a professor to explain it.”

Mr. Botero’s cheekiness showed in his paintings of Marie Antoinette sauntering through the cobble-stoned street of a Colombian town, a humongous ballet dancer en pointe at the barre, and a serious-minded cleric lying in comical repose in a park. In a self-portrait, Mr. Botero depicted himself as a painter dressed in full bullfighting regalia.

He rejected suggestions that he should move beyond the voluminous figures in his paintings and his bulbous sculptures.

Fernando Botero Angulo was born in Medellín on April 19, 1932, the second of three siblings. His father, a salesman who sometimes made his rounds on horseback, died of an apparent heart attack when Mr. Botero was 4. His mother, a seamstress, struggled to maintain the family.

An uncle enrolled Mr. Botero in a bullfighting school, where pupils practiced passes before imaginary bulls. “We were about 20 pupils in the school. After much training, one day, the professor finally said, ‘Now, we’re going to experience with a real bull.’ Nineteen left the school, me included,” Mr. Botero told the South China Morning Post.

He began sketching scenes from the bullring, finding a passion outside his Jesuit school, where priests, scandalized by an admiring essay he wrote on the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, expelled him in 1949.

Mr. Botero graduated from a public high school, eventually moving to Bogotá, the Colombian capital, a breathtaking experience that thrust the young artist into a creative milieu — artistic and literary — far removed from provincial Medellín. When one of his paintings placed second at a national competition in 1952, he used the prize money to study art in Madrid.

He visited the Louvre in Paris and settled in Florence in 1953, delighting in Renaissance paintings. But upon returning to Colombia in 1955, Mr. Botero bombed in his efforts to sell his work.

Mr. Botero and his first wife, Gloria Zea, moved a year later to Mexico City, where Mr. Botero seized on what would become his signature style. A Botero painting from this era — depicting a mandolin with an improbably tiny sound hole that made the instrument appear out of proportion — signified the artist’s exploration of volume.

He told the South China Morning Post that he resented the tendency among some viewers to dismiss his subjects as fat. “For me, it’s an exaltation of volume and sensuality,” he said. “I’ve done the opposite of what most artists do today — I’ve given importance to volume. I’ve also given importance to subject matter and expression — poetry. I don’t want to shock people. I want to give them pleasure.”

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.”

Lew Perkins, former athletic director at the University of Kansas and Wichita State University, died Tuesday morning in Lawrence at the age of 78. Perkins’ passing was the result of side effects from Parkinson’s Disease, a family member told The Star. A former college basketball player who graduated from the University of Iowa in 1967, Perkins was Athletic Director (AD) at Wichita State from 1983-87 and KU’s AD from 2003-10. He also served as AD at UConn (1990-2003,) Maryland (1987-90) and South Carolina-Aiken (1969-80). He was associate AD at Penn from 1980-83.

Perkins was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Board of Trustees in 2005. He served on the NCAA Championships & Competition Cabinet and the NCAA Bowl Certification Committee. Perkins was athletic director at KU in 2008 when the Jayhawks won the NCAA men’s basketball title and the Orange Bowl. The Orange Bowl victory capped a school-record 12-win season. KU also won the 2008 Insight Bowl — marking the first time in school history that KU played in bowl games in back-to-back seasons.

“Lew was first and foremost an advocate for student-athletes and coaches,” former KU associate athletic director Jim Marchiony told The Star. “He expected 100% effort and strove for excellence with every fiber of his being. Those expectations rubbed off on an impressive number of people who worked for him and went on to enjoy very successful careers in college athletics.” Marchiony, who worked with Perkins at UConn and KU, added: “Lew spoke often and fondly about his days at both KU and Wichita State. The fact that they (Perkins and wife Gwen) stayed and lived in Kansas after his tenure at KU speaks volumes about what he thought of the state of Kansas and the Midwest.”

After retiring from his post at KU in September 2010, Perkins and his wife moved to New Orleans for a brief period of time before returning to Lawrence. There were many facility upgrades during Perkins’ KU tenure, including $10 million worth of renovations to Allen Fieldhouse completed in 2005-06. At the time, another $15 million was approved for fieldhouse upgrades. Also, the Booth Family Hall of Athletics was added to the fieldhouse at a cost of $5 million. The Anderson Family Football Complex officially opened on July 30, 2008, adjacent to the football field at Memorial Stadium, at a cost of $31 million.

In 2009, $42 million in improvements for a new basketball practice and training facility, locker rooms, donor atrium, concourses and other upgrades to Allen Fieldhouse were completed. Another $8 million was spent for improvement of KU’s student-athlete housing. Other projects during Perkins’ tenure included new baseball and softball facilities and a boathouse for the rowing team. In 2008, TIME magazine named Perkins one of the top 35 sports executives in the world. He was the only college administrator on the list.

“Lew did a lot of good things in his time here at KU,” KU basketball coach Bill Self said. “He was a big contributor in us changing the mindset of the athletic department and also competing for championships on a more consistent level. Our hearts go out to Gwen and the family. The one thing I will remember most about Lew was he always put the student-athletes first, and the student-athletes that got to know him well all loved him.” Current AD Travis Goff said: ““Lew made an indelible impact on Kansas Athletics and served his role at KU with passion and vigor on a daily basis. We will forever be grateful for his dedication to this university and athletic department. We are thinking of Lew’s amazing family during this time and sending our deepest thoughts and sympathies.”

Perkins’ tenure at KU also included a scandal involving the KU athletic department ticket office. Federal charges were filed by the FBI and IRS against five employees of the athletic department, as well as one consultant. Perkins was not implicated in the scandal but some of the employees charged with crimes were either hired by Perkins or promoted during his years at KU. Of the scandal, he said in May 2010: “We had the wrong people hired for the wrong jobs.” Of being an AD, he told The Star’s Vahe Gregorian: “Being an athletic director, I don’t care where, it’s not easy. People think it’s just fun and games. It’s a hard job.”

Perkins served on the Big 12’s Basketball Issues Committee and was chair of the Big 12 Board of Athletics Directors. He was a member of the Big 12 Television Committee and the Gatorade Board of Directors. After Perkins announced his retirement in September 2010 at age 65, then-KU chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said: “There is no question that Kansas athletics has benefited from Lew Perkins’ leadership. One need only look at the academic success of our student-athletes, at KU’s trophy cases and at our state-of-the-art athletic facilities to see those benefits. I appreciate his service and understand his decision (to retire).” At the time, Perkins said: “I am grateful that Chancellor (Robert) Hemenway allowed Gwen and me to come to Lawrence to be part of the great university. We love this community. We consider it home. This decision will give us a chance to stay involved in the community in different ways. It will also allow me to explore other professional opportunities.”

He was honored in 2000 as the National Athletic Director of the Year, as selected by Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal and the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). At Perkins’ urging, the Connecticut state legislature funded a $90 million, 40,000-seat stadium for UConn in Hartford, Conn. It opened in August 2003. A native of Chelsea, Mass., Perkins was inducted into his high school Hall of Fame in 1989. He played basketball at Iowa (1965-67) for KU graduate Ralph Miller, a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Perkins earned his undergraduate degree at Iowa in 1967. Perkins served as athletic director (1969-80) and head basketball coach (1969-79) at the University of South Carolina Aiken. He received his masters degree in education (1975) from the University of South Carolina. Perkins delivered the commencement address and received an honorary Doctor of Education degree at USC-Aiken in May 2005. 

Terrence B. “Terry” Byrne, 79, passed away on July 13, 2023; beloved husband for 48 years to Kathy Byrne (nee Perret); loving father of Jennifer Byrne Zaher, Michael Patrick Byrne and his wife Laura; dear brother of Dennis B. Byrne, Virginia “Gin” Hines and the late Michael B. and Kevin K. Byrne; adoring grandfather of Laila Zaher, Corbin, Nolan and Cooper Byrne.

Born in Scottdale, Pennsylvania, he was the son of Frank Byrne, an industrialist, and Helen Brennen, a homemaker.

He was a 1962 graduate of the old Immaculate Conception High School in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. He earned a degree at West Virginia University and, after moving to Baltimore, was a graduate of the University of Baltimore School of Law.

He joined the Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. as an insurance adjuster and later became a loan officer at the old Commercial Credit Corp.

He met his future wife, Kathlyne “Kathy” Perret, while she was working at Commercial Credit as a summer replacement secretary. Their first date was to the Wishing Well Lounge in Parkville and later they went to a steak and egg restaurant.

“We talked until four in the morning,” his wife said. “He was bright and kind and most known for his sense of humor.”

They married on August 11, 1974 at her home parish, the Church of the Nativity in Timonium. They settled in Rodgers Forge.

Mr. Byrne started his law career with attorney Ron Levasseur in Towson. He then joined John Dilli and Seymour R. Goldstein’s firm in Mount Vernon, which became Goldstein and Byrne.

In 2001, he established the law office of Terrence B. Byrne on Chesapeake Avenue in Towson, specializing in workers’ compensation and personal injury. In 2019 he became of counsel to the law offices of William O’Brien Finch Jr.

“He was a dedicated and zealous advocate for his clients and had an unmatched work ethic,” said his son, Michael Bryne. “I don’t know where he got the energy.”

As a child he spent summers at Chautauqua Institution, a resort in New York, and sailed on his father’s classic Chris-Craft, the Tingy Pete on Chautauqua Lake.

“His childhood years created an impression on him and he loved being on a boat,” said his wife.

In 1997 he bought a home at Sherwood Forest Club on the Severn River.

“He loved operating a ski boat, the Irish Wake,” said his wife. “Then came Hurricane Isabel [in 2003]. He had pulled the boat out of the water and put it on land only to have a tree fall on it. He was devastated.”

He later bought a Cobalt boat for trips in the Severn River, but never named it.

He and his family traveled to Arizona, New Mexico and later expanded their destinations to Europe, Argentina and Uruguay.

Mr. Byrne cultivated a wide social circle in and around Towson. He and his friends gathered for dinners and planned trips together. They began with cruises and created their own excursions to China, Scandinavia and along the Rhine River.

Mr. Byrne owned a series of classic cars: a Mustang, Jaguar XKE, Austin Healy and a Crossfire.

His Austin Healy became his personal restoration project.

“He had the energy to work on it — he took it apart and put it back together. And after all that labor, he did not drive it much,” said his son, Michael. “He also decided to put central air conditioning in the house. He went to the supply house and loaded a station wagon with ductwork. His system worked and took a few months to install.

“A legal client helped him with that job. Terry developed strong friends among his clients,” said his son.

When he lived in Rodgers Forge before moving to Stoneleigh, he built bookcases, a sectional sofa, fences and decks. They later settled in Stevenson Mews.

“We learned together, building things,” said his wife.

Mr. Byrne also enjoyed reading works of history, newspapers and following world issues.

A celebration of life will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday at the Lemmon Funeral Home of Dulaney Valley, 10 West Padonia Road.

Survivors include his wife of nearly 49 years, Kathlyne “Kathy” Perret Byrne, a Good Shepherd School preschool teacher and Annie E. Casey Foundation library consultant; a son, Michael P. Byrne of Chagrin Falls, Ohio; a daughter, Jennifer Byrne Zaher of Loch Raven Village; a sister, Virginia “Gin” Hines of Dumfries, Virginia; a brother, Dennis B. Byrne of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania; and four grandchildren.