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Clifford Charles Ashby ’50

Cliff grew up a child of the Great Depression in Illinois, earning money by sweeping the shop floors of John Boos & Company, the butcher-block manufacturer cofounded by his great-grandfather in 1892. He became proficient at ham radio in his youth and served two years in the Merchant Marine in the South Pacific as a radio officer during World War II. After the war, he studied at Reed for the better part of two years, where he gained experience working on theatre lighting and set building. Intent on majoring in theatre, he transferred to the University of Iowa, where he fulfilled his goal.

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From extensive travels throughout the Mediterranean, studying ancient Greek theatre structures, Cliff wrote Classical Greek Theatre: New Views of an Old Subject. In 2001, he was awarded the Chancellor’s Award of Excellence, Texas Tech’s highest faculty honor. As professor emeritus, he continued his research and writing, submitting an article for scholarly publication this spring.

Cliff enjoyed life in the great outdoors and traveling. He built a log cabin in Wyoming, did river canoeing, and made numerous whitewater runs of the Rio Grande. In 1989, he completed a 1,100-mile, single-canoe run of the Yukon River, from Canada through Alaska, to the Arctic Circle. He was a longtime member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Despite being legally blind for the past decade, Cliff walked his dogs daily and maintained a seat in the Chaucer Society, one of the oldest poker games in West Texas.

Cliff never lost his connection to Reed, donating a number of books from his extensive theatre collection to the Hauser Library. Survivors include his wife, son, daughter, granddaughter, and sister.

Appeared in Reed magazine: December 2015

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