July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2023 Roy left us just after midnight on November 20, 2023, with family at his side and Robert Johnson's blues playing in his room. An aggressive brain lymphoma took him away from us too soon, at 68 years old. The loss is shocking and heartbreaking.
Roy was born on July 14, 1955 in Murrayville, British Columbia to Gunther (Manny) and Edith (Sierra) Bauer, German immigrants who had met and fallen in love on board the ship Anna Solain as they left Germany after WW II. After arrival in Quebec, they married and lived in Kemano and Kitimat, British Columbia, from 1953-58, during which time Roy and sister Annie were born, then moved to Vancouver where they lived for two years.
The family came to the United States in 1960, living briefly in L.A. County, then Anaheim, and finally the house they bought near Villa Park in 1961. Their neighborhood was surrounded by orange groves and tall eucalyptus trees that served as windbreaks, and Roy loved walking to school alongside the massive eucalyptus trees that lined Santiago Boulevard. Roy's younger brothers Ray and Ron were born during this period. In 1976, Manny built a home near Trabuco Canyon, nestled among the live oaks and chaparral and graced with a panoramic view of Saddleback Mountain and the hills stretching beyond Plano Trabuco.
When the kids were young, Manny and Sierra took long drives, with Roy and Annie in the backseat for hours on end. Roy believed that his love of music was born listening to the radio on those drives. He found tunes such as "Sukiyaki" and "Midnight in Moscow" magical, then and for all of his life. Music was deeply important to Roy, and he introduced his family to music he loved from early days: "Dark Side of the Moon," the Moody Blues, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, and the Tijuana Brass were at various times family favorites. In the late 80s, Roy and his brother Ron enjoyed recording their own musical compositions on 4 track tape.
The Bauers were deeply attached to their animal companions, and Roy's love for animals was constant all of his life. The family dogs Billy and Ildy, from the early days in Trabuco Canyon, were especially dear to Roy. He adored his loyal companion, Teddy Bear, a rescued tabby who loved taking walks with Roy and tree-climbing when the spirit moved him, and who greatly amused colleagues and students with appearances during Roy's on-line meetings and lectures.
Roy excelled in the Cub Scout and Boy Scout troops his father led, achieving Eagle Scout rank in 1968. (He was always amused that his Eagle diploma was signed by then-President Richard Nixon.) He attended Villa Park High School, then earned a B.A. and a Master's degree in Philosophy at UC Irvine. He found a great gang of friends in the graduate program at UCI who played volleyball for hours on Friday afternoons and goofed around on Balboa Island and Laguna Beach on weekends. He and fellow graduate student Kathie Jenni became friends during that time and fell in love. Roy married Kathie in 1982 at the Jenni ranch in Montana, and the two enjoyed fifteen years together, loving their life and home in old-town Orange. The marriage came to an end, but the two remained close friends for all of Roy's life.
Roy joined the Irvine Valley College faculty in 1987 and taught there for 37 years. He was a passionate and committed teacher with a deep interest in ethics and political philosophy, and a passion for moral issues such as animal rights that energized his teaching. Roy served for over 25 years on the Academic Senate. In the 90s, he watched as leaders of a then-corrupt faculty union allotted themselves huge salaries and endorsed Board of Trustees candidates whose singular qualifications were avoiding scrutiny of inflated pay scales and accepting union leadership's endorsements. One was a conspiracy-theorist and Holocaust denier. These circumstances inspired Roy to attend and record board meetings, do extensive research, and feed news of district shenanigans to newspaper reporters. Soon he founded Dissent, an investigative journalism newsletter which he wrote, illustrated, photocopied, and hand-delivered to faculty, staff, Board of Trustees, and union mailboxes at both SOCCCD campuses, IVC and Saddleback. Dissent reported on the Holocaust denier and inspired two community-sponsored recall efforts. Roy endured personal and political attacks, bogus disciplinary actions by administration and, due to his vigorous and relentless criticism of corrupt board members, was ordered to attend "anger management" classes. This delighted him. Represented by legendary civil rights attorney Carol Sobel in trial, Roy prevailed in court. The impact of Dissent cannot be overstated: its vigilant reportage led to political change in district and campus leadership, democratic reform of the union, improved oversight policies, and affirmation of both academic freedom and the value of public higher education. The UC Irvine libraries feature digital archives of Dissent the Blog, and recently agreed to accept the Professor Roy Bauer Papers into their Orange County collection.
Roy was an exceptional person, deeply loved, admired, and respected. He was never a conventional thinker, and impressed even those who (roughly) shared his political and moral outlook with penetrating critiques of accepted wisdom, popular trends, idiotic jargon, superficial thinking, and cliché. He was a superb philosopher and a talented historian, delving deep into Orange County history and chronicling his parents' early lives in Germany.
Roy's bravery in the face of disease and intensive care was matched by his moral courage in standing up for what was right. He was incredibly, unhesitatingly generous, bestowing gifts both small and very large indeed on family and friends. He cultivated a wide range of interests ranging from language to film, physics to politics, cooking to veterinary practice. He was a brilliant writer, with a genius for satire and wickedly hilarious graphics that animated Dissent. His love of music was eclectic and discerning, and many of his friends found their way to new and old music alike through Roy's discoveries. He appreciated a wide range of genres and sensibilities, from Bulgarian choral folk to contemporary rock, from Mo-Town to punk, but most of all, and always, the blues.
Roy was preceded in death by his parents, Manny and Sierra, who passed in 2017 and 2019, and his younger brother Raymond, who died in a work accident in 2001. He is survived by brother and sister-in-law Ron and Susan Bauer, sister Annie Kook, longtime friend (and former wife) Kathie Jenni, nieces Sarah, Catherine, and Natalie and nephew Adam; office mate and great friend Lisa Alvarez, beloved pal Jan Rainbird, and many other friends and colleagues.
Roy, we were lucky to have you while we did, and we will hold you close in our hearts forever. We love and miss you fiercely.
