Tom Stephenson, Dec. 20, 67 One of San Diego’s most-beloved theater actors, Stephenson appeared in more than 75 San Diego County theater productions during his 40-year stage career. He was best known for playing Ebenezer Scrooge in Cygnet Theatre’s long-running “A Christmas Carol” production until he retired in 2022. The son of a renowned theater director who taught drama at San Diego State University, Stephenson was known for his kind, soft-spoken and humble personality and his versatility in dramatic roles, musicals and Shakespeare plays. In 2014, he was named Actor of the Year at the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle’s Craig Noel Awards and was also one of the most-awarded actors in the 22-year history of the Craig Noels. “I’d like to be remembered as a generous actor who worked in such a way that gave others the space and respect they needed to be their best,” he said, in a 2023 Union-Tribune interview. Longtime San Diego actor Tom Stephenson. (David Rumley) Javier Batiz, Dec. 15, 80 The Tijuana native, long hailed as “the godfather of Mexican rock ‘n’ roll,” was a triple-threat as a guitarist, band leader and talent scout. He was a key mentor in the 1950s to the young Carlos Santana, who studied with Batiz and soon joined his band, Los TJ’s. “(Javier) looked like Little Richard and played guitar like B.B. King,” Santana said of Batiz in a Union-Tribune interview. “Once I heard the sound Javier had I knew, right then and there, this was what I would be and that this is all I would be.” Mexican rock pioneer Javier Batiz has died at the age of 80. The longtime Tijuana resident is shown here at his home in the Mexican border city on April 27, 2023. (Alejandro Tamayo / The San Diego Union-Tribune) Morris Vance, Nov. 21, 85 He worked in Vista government for almost 30 years as city manager and mayor. Vance was hired as the city manager in 1981. During his 17 years as the city’s top executive, the city formed its redevelopment agency, created the Vista Business Park and Industrial Park that’s now home to more than 800 businesses, and built a library, a senior nutrition center, the Wave Waterpark, and several fire stations. courtesy photoMorris B. Vance After his time as city manager, he was elected mayor in 2002 and again in 2006. “Morris Vance’s vision and commitment to Vista have left a profound and lasting impact on our community,” said City Manager John Conley said. James Lawrence ‘Larry’ Irving, Nov. 20, 89 He was a U.S. District judge who resigned his lifetime position in disagreement with sentencing guidelines and who later mediated a $7.2 billion settlement in the Enron case. The San Diego native left a long legal legacy, including eight years as a federal judge in San Diego, appointed in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan. In the 1980s, he was considered as a top prospect to be the director of the FBI, and in 1990, the Los Angeles Times said Irving was “widely regarded as one of the keenest judges in California.” Retired Judge J. Lawrence Irving. (Bruce K. Huff / UT file) After Irving brokered the deal that saw the departure of embattled then-San Diego Mayor Bob Filner in 2016. As a judge, he presided over several notable cases, including the money-laundering case of San Diego businessman Richard Silberman. In 1990, Irving made a stunning announcement that he was resigning from the bench primarily because he disagreed with federal sentencing guidelines requiring mandatory minimum sentences. He lamented the loss of the discretion for judges. Irving later moved into work as a mediator. He shepherded high-stakes cases beyond the massive Enron fraud scandal settlement, including mediating an agreement in the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal and in a suit stemming from San Diego’s pension crisis. In 2016, the Union-Tribune reported Irving said he had mediated settlements tallying more than $11 billion over his career. Joanne Chory, Nov. 12, 69 She was a Salk Institute biologist widely admired by climate scientists for her efforts to get plants to absorb greater amounts of greenhouse gases. Earlier this year, she was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. The 200-year-old science education and development center praised the way she used genetics to decipher how plants sense and respond to light, an important branch of climate science. Professor Joanne Chory of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies died Nov. 12 due to complications from Parkinson’s disease. (Salk Institute) Previous winners of Franklin medals include Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. Chory joined the Salk faculty in 1988 and became a stand-out scientist, no small accomplishment among the research stars at the institute. Her work, in most basic terms, focused on understanding how plants respond to their environment. Chuck Bieler, Nov. 7, 89 He served a dozen years as executive director of the San Diego Zoo, helped open the Wild Animal Park and then worked decades raising money to support both institutions and wildlife conservation. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance officials called Bieler “an extraordinary leader, friend and cherished member” of the organization, where he worked for 55 years. Chuck Bieler. (San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance) He was hired at the San Diego Zoo in 1969 and served as its executive director from 1973 to 1985. Officials said he not only helped establish the Wild Animal Park, now known as San Diego Zoo Safari Park, but played a “pivotal role” in the founding of the Frozen Zoo, known then as CRES or the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species. Patti McGee, Oct. 16, 79 She was considered the world’s first professional female skateboarder. As a teen in Point Loma, she acquired her skills skateboarding down Loring Street after surfing in the ocean. Loring Street “was a challenge. That was like surfing a big wave, if you could make it,” she told the skateboarding magazine Juice in 2017. The 1965 Life magazine cover featuring Patti McGee performing her signature trick. (Photo by Michael Kitada, Orange County Register contributing photographer) Her career kicked off in 1964 when she took first place at the inaugural national skateboarding championships in Santa Monica, clinching the win with her signature trick, a handstand on the skateboard. That move was later cemented into the culture’s history when she graced the cover of Life magazine in May 1965, feet high in the air, board rolling beneath her. Paul Kamanski, Oct. 5, 68 He was a singer and in the words of the Beat Farmers’ Joey Harris, “San Diego’s greatest songwriter.” His best-known songs — including “Hollywood Hills” and “California Kid” — were recorded and popularized on albums by the globe-trotting San Diego rock band the Beat Farmers. Veteran singer-songwriter Paul Kamanski. (Paul M. Bowers) “Paul is right up there with Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Smokey Robinson as one of my favorite songwriters of all time,” said fellow Beat Farmer Jerry Raney. A talented singer and guitarist, Kamanski had rock-star looks and considerable charisma. But songwriting was his forte, and the Beat Farmers recorded nearly a dozen of his songs. Lynn Reaser, July 30, 76 She was chief economist at Point Loma Nazarene University’s Fermanian Business and Economic Institute, but she had cemented her national reputation as a revered economist long before joining the university 15 years ago. She was someone bankers, government leaders and journalists would turn to when they needed to translate complex economics into real-world applications. Before coming to San Diego in 2009 to embrace her new-found love of teaching, Reaser had been chief economist at First Interstate Bank in Los Angeles and Barnett Bank in Florida — which later became Bank of America — during the 1970s and late 1990s. She later served as chief economic adviser to former California Controller John Chiang. In San Diego, she quickly became known for her economic analysis of everything from housing to energy infrastructure. Readers of The San Diego Union-Tribune will remember her as a weekly contributor to the U-T Econometer. Rebecca Taylor, July 17, 40 She was chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party. She served five years in the Navy as an aviation electrician and went on deployments in Germany and Afghanistan. After her military service and a move to San Diego, where she had been stationed, she earned a political science degree from the study-abroad program at the University of Oxford and later a master’s degree from San Diego State Universtiy. By then, Taylor had begun working for local political campaigns. Taylor held a number of professional jobs since earning her master’s. Most recently she was working as a sales and marketing specialist at Political Data Inc., a voter data firm based in Sacramento. In addition to her service to Democrats locally and across the state, Taylor co-founded the veterans caucus of the California Young Democrats and served with the Democratic Women’s Club and the Blue Dream Democrats. She also served on the Ocean Beach Town Council and was once elected to the executive board of the California Democratic Party. Dea Hurston, July 7, 73 For nearly 40 years, she was a powerful force in San Diego’s theater community. She was an underwriter, arts commissioner, community engagement leader, gala planner and outspoken voice for creating opportunities for actors, directors, designers and playwrights of color. In 2021, Hurston fulfilled a longtime dream of becoming a paid playwright with the world premiere of her musical “1222 Oceanfront: A Black Family Christmas” at New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad. It’s the comic story of a successful and loving African American family celebrating the holidays together without any of the negative clichés about Black life in America. Hurston said it was her mission to bring her plays to life onstage because they offered an honest slice of Black life that’s rarely seen on American theater stages. Playwright and arts donor Dea Hurston. (Eduardo Contreras / The San Diego Union-Tribune file) To honor Hurston’s local legacy in the arts in January 2023, the board of directors at New Village Arts Theatre dedicated their newly remodeled building in downtown Carlsbad as the Dea Hurston New Village Arts Center. Don Bauder, June 21, 88 He was the longtime business editor and columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune who forged his reputation as an unafraid muckraker, challenging the powerful and exposing financial schemers wherever he could sniff them out. Don Bauder Bauder relished the chase that few in his chosen field have mastered: finding, confirming and reporting on the cheats and scoundrels who permeated every market in which he worked. For a time in the 1980s, Bauder was the face of what was then The San Diego Union, with his image appearing on news racks and other spaces promoting the newspaper in the years before it merged with the Evening Tribune. More than once he agitated influential advertisers, prompting demands that he be fired or otherwise tempered. He received more death threats than he could count but refused to alter his approach to his craft. “He knew the markets. He knew filings. He knew the SEC, and he knew about financial scams and how they worked,” said Craig D. Rose, the former Union-Tribune technology and utilities reporter. “One of his best lines was, ‘Most thievery is legal.’” Bill Walton, May 27, 71 He was a San Diego icon, basketball superstar, award-winning television analyst, certified Deadhead, cyclist, philanthropist, political activist, philosopher, father, grandfather, loyal friend and jovial stranger. The 6-foot-11 center won titles at Helix High School in La Mesa, two at UCLA and two in the NBA before moving back to San Diego and working with dozens of local charities. Former NBA star Bill Walton waves to the crowd before throwing the ceremonial first pitch before the Padres game against the Rockies at Petco Park on Thursday, Aug. 8, 2019 in San Diego, California. ( Hayne Palmour IV / The San Diego Union-Tribune file “He was Mr. San Diego,” said former San Diego State basketball coach Steve Fisher, whose first recruiting class included Walton’s son, Chris. “That’s who he was. He loved this city like no other.” Walton returned to San Diego after his playing career and launched one in 1990 as a TV commentator. He was best known for touting his beloved Pac-12 as the “Conference of Champions” and drifting into stream-of-consciousness tangents that sometimes had little to do with the game. The Grateful Dead, his favorite band that he saw in concert hundreds of times, was a common topic. He regularly wore tie-dyed concert T-shirts on air. Walton and his wife, Lori, were devoted philanthropists who channeled their charitable giving, in part, through the Lucky Duck Foundation, founded in 2005 as a conduit for multiple causes. In recent years, it became focused exclusively on addressing homelessness. Milt Silverman, May 21, 79 He was a powerhouse attorney whose courtroom successes included some of the biggest cases in the region. In his 50-year legal career, Silverman didn’t just take cases. He took on causes. He thrived with his name attached to some of San Diego’s most famous — or infamous — legal battles. He successfully defended his first murder case when he was 25 years old: a Marine accused of gunning down a police officer in Vietnam. In the early 1980s, he secured a murder acquittal for a gay man who killed a woman in self-defense, fighting her off as she was raping him — which Silverman argued to the jury was physically possible. Decades later, he won findings of factual innocence for teenagers wrongly accused in the death of 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe. Silverman also secured settlements for her family. But the case that made him legendary in legal circles arose from a 1985 traffic stop in Encanto that ended with an 18-year-old driver, Sagon Penn, fatally shooting a White San Diego police officer and wounding another officer and a civilian ride-along before fleeing in a police car. Silverman argued self-defense against excessive force by police, who beat Penn him with batons. Following two trials, Penn was acquitted on murder, attempted murder and manslaughter charges in what Silverman himself later called “the biggest, most divisive, racially charged, criminal case in the history of San Diego.” James McDonald, May 13, 63 He was known as the “Bee Guy of Encinitas” because of his passionate advocacy for pollinators. The owner of the Encinitas Bee Co., McDonald was a force for change in the treatment of bees in Encinitas. He successfully campaigned for Encinitas to become a Bee City USA; helped city officials craft an urban agriculture ordinance that allowed bee keeping in residential neighborhoods; and got the city to stop using the bee-killing neonicotinoid insecticides in its parks and other public spaces. James T. Hubbell, May 17, 92 He was an iconic local sculptor, artist and humanitarian whose organically inspired works can be found in homes, churches and public buildings throughout San Diego County and beyond. Hubbell is best known for his other-worldly “habitable sculptures” home and art compound in Santa Ysabel that’s listed in the San Diego County Register of Historic Places. James Hubbell in 2013 in his Santa Ysabel home. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune file) Art and architecture fans from around the world fly in each spring to tour the Ilan-Lael compound’s imaginatively shaped buildings, which resemble the Hobbit houses in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” films, and the expressionistic organic style of Modernist Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí. The Ilan-lael property was built to follow the natural contours of the land. Huge boulders were incorporated where they stood into the buildings and swimming pool, and the swooping roofs suggest the shapes of shells, leaves and bones. The property was built with local stone, wood milled in Julian and adobe fired in Escondido and Tecate. Working with his studio of artisans on commission, Hubbell created hundreds of works for private homes, commercial buildings and public art installations. Highlights include the Pacific Portal gazebo on Shelter Island, a mosaic fountain in Coronado, and numerous stained-glass windows, gates, and mosaics in homes, libraries and churches. Joan Jacobs, May 6, 91 She was one half of a powerhouse philanthropic couple whose gifts have shaped the cultural, scientific and educational landscapes of San Diego. Jacobs and her husband of 70 years, Irwin, have almost single-handedly rewritten the cultural history of San Diego, their adopted hometown. The couple moved west after Irwin Jacobs left a teaching position at MIT to help grow the then-fledgling UC San Diego. Irwin Jacobs went on to co-found Qualcomm, and the couple donated hundreds of millions of dollars to various local causes and institutions. Irwin M. Jacobs, the founding chairman and CEO Emeritus of Qualcomm, and his wife Joan Jacobs, pose for a portrait in their home on Aug. 7, 2019, in San Diego. (Sam Hodgson / The San Diego Union-Tribune file They include the San Diego Symphony, UC San Diego, the Central Library, the La Jolla Playhouse, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the Salk Institute, among many others. She also served on the boards of other arts, educational and health care organizations across the city, helping to guide cultural programming and museum acquisitions. Her many awards include the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, the Helen Bull Vandervort Alumni Achievement Award from Cornell University, and the Philanthropy in the Arts Award from Americans for the Arts. Vernor Vinge, March 20, 79 He was a San Diego State University professor whose award-winning science fiction novels helped foretell the rise and impact of the Internet, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Many of Vinge’s books, in one way or another, spoke of a coming “technological singularity” — the notion that machines will eventually become smarter than people, and that humans could be the worse for it. He apparently was mining that theme during the last year of his life. Vinge was working on a sequel to “Rainbows End,” his immensely popular 2006 novel set in San Diego in 2025, when a cure exists for Alzheimer’s disease. The book earned Vinge the 2007 Hugo Award — one of five Hugos that he would earn during his long career. The Hugo is considered the top book award in the science fiction genre. Vinge earned a doctorate in mathematics in 1971 at UC San Diego. He was captivated by science, particularly artificial intelligence. Vinge loved the idea of connecting the human brain to computers. Before long, he was publishing stories in sci-fi magazines and later began writing books. Frank L. Hope, March 18, 93 He was one of San Diego’s postwar architects who helped reshape the city and is best known for his role in developing the San Diego Stadium in Mission Valley. Hope headed the city’s largest architectural firm, Hope Design Group, focusing on civic, commercial and institutional projects. By the time he retired in the early 1990s, the firm with a staff of 150 designed hospitals, office towers, hotels and pursued international work in Asia, Europe and the Mideast. Its crowning achievement was the $28 million, all-concrete San Diego Stadium in Mission Valley. It was later renamed San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, Qualcomm Stadium and SDCCU (San Diego Credit Union) Stadium. Stephen L. Weber, March 17, 82 San Diego State University President Stephen Weber speaks to reporters after a news conference Thursday, Nov. 16, 2000, in San Diego announcing his decision to keep the Aztec name. The university will consider replacing the logo of a red-faced, glaring Indian with a more accurate image, Weber said. (Dan Trevan / The San Diego Union-Tribune file) He led San Diego State University as president from 1996 to 2011. During his own tenure, Weber pushed hard to improve graduation rates and to recruit local students, which helped diversify the student body. He also was a driving force behind the Campaign for SDSU, which raised $800 million in donations during a 10-year period ending in 2017. Some of that money helped support the school’s efforts to become a major research power, which is now coming to pass. SDSU raised $192 million for research last year, a figure that could grow to $300 million annually by 2030, the campus said. Weber also helped raise more than $67 million to upgrade or construct key sports facilities, including Viejas Arena. Roger Guillemin, Feb. 21, 100 He was a scientist whose insights about brain hormones broadly helped lead to better ways to fight disease and earned him the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was one of the world’s foremost experts on the endocrine system, which controls the body’s hormones. It affects everything from metabolism to sexual function, and factors into such diseases as diabetes, osteoporosis and cancer. The Salk Institute hired the star researcher in 1970 to lead its new Laboratories for Neuroendocrinology. He discovered somatostatin, a hormone that proved useful in treating pituitary tumors. He also was among the first scientists to isolate endorphins, hormones that reduce stress and relieve pain. His research was crucial to proving and explaining the role that the brain plays in regulating hormones. This work led to him sharing the Nobel Prize with researchers Andrew V. Schally and Rosalyn Yalow. Bob Boss, Feb. 18, 71 He was a versatile guitarist who could play multiple styles with equal skill and passion and shined equally on stage and off as a performer, recording artist and music educator who taught at UC San Diego, San Diego State University, Palomar College, Mesa College, MiraCosta College and the Young Lions Jazz Conservatory. Boss moved to Oceanside in 1983 and went on to collaborate with such top area musicians as jazz flutist Holly Hofmann, pianists Mike Wofford and Harry Pickens, guitarist Ray Crawford and Jimmy and Jeannie Cheatham, the co-leaders of The Sweet Baby Blues Band. Boss also was a key member in the 1990s of the band led by San Diego singer and pianist A.J. Croce, with whom Boss performed on “The Tonight Show” and on concert bills with Ray Charles, B.B. King and other legends. Mojo Nixon, Feb. 7, 66 He was a rock ’n’ roll wild man who was an MTV mainstay in the 1980s and later became a longtime Sirius XM radio host. A larger-than-life figure, on stage and off, Nixon rose to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the San Diego duo Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper. Nixon sang and banged on an empty water jug. Roper played guitar and other stringed instruments. Together, they recorded such proudly left-of-center songs as “Burn Down the Malls,” “Jesus at McDonald’s,” “Destroy All Lawyers” and “Elvis is Everywhere,” for which Nixon and Roper made a video that became a hit of sorts on MTV. Mojo Nixon mugged for the camera in 2010 outside of Canter’s Deli in Los Angeles. He and Roper released six albums together between 1985 and 1990. A gregarious man with an uproarious laugh, Nixon once described himself to the Union-Tribune as a musical version of the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn — albeit one far more prone to using profanity. Candace Mattoon Carroll, Jan. 24, 79 She was a highly regarded appellate attorney and past president of the San Diego County Bar Association and California Women Lawyers who also helped save the San Diego Opera a decade ago. Despite a humble upbringing, Carroll went on to graduate from Duke Law School, where she met her husband of nearly 50 years, Len Simon. After Duke, Carroll completed a clerkship with the U.S. Court of Appeals D.C. Circuit, then went to work as an appellate attorney for the National Labor Relations Board. The couple and their children moved to San Diego in 1983. Carroll joined a firm now known as Sullivan Hill. Carroll served as president of the County Bar Association in 1998 and president of California Women Lawyers in 2003 and 2004. She also served on the local and national boards of the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as on the boards of the San Diego Convention Center, San Diego Volunteer Lawyers Program and the San Diego chapter of the International Rescue Committee. In 2014, when the San Diego Opera nearly went extinct, Carroll, an opera lover, became deeply involved in saving the organization. She joined the board of directors that same year and served in a leadership role until her death. Trish Dugger, Jan. 22, 94 She was the city of Encinitas’ first, and so far, only poet laureate. She published several volumes of her poetry and was a popular performer at the Full Moon Poets’ Poetry Slam events at La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas. In 2005, the City Council designated her as the city’s first “honorary” poet laureate. In December 2023, the council issued a new proclamation declaring that she now was the city’s “official” poet laureate. Roy Cazares, Jan. 9, 81 He became one of few Latino attorneys in San Diego County in the 1970s and later a San Diego Superior Court judge. As a teenager, he spent his summers in the 1950s reading to his siblings in their National City bedroom cramped with bunk beds. The academically inclined boy from South County was destined for scholastic achievement. His résumé proved that: a graduate of Southwestern College, San Diego State University and Harvard Law School. He was a respected jurist and mentor to many across the county, particularly to Chicanos in the legal community. “The enormous impact Judge Cazares had on our legal community cannot be overstated,” said Nadia Bermudez, former president of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association. Maxine Mahon, Jan. 14, 82 For 50 years, she was San Diego’s doyenne of dance as the founder and director of California Ballet Co., which despite its closure in 2020 still holds the record as the oldest professional ballet company in San Diego history. Friends and colleagues have referred to her as a “San Diego icon,” and her decades of distinguished leadership earned her lifetime achievement award in 2002 from the San Diego Dance Alliance. Among her proudest accomplishments were the establishment of the California Ballet Lecture Demonstrations; a dance academy with three locations in San Diego;  awards at international ballet competitions in Varna, Bulgaria, Toyko and Helsinki; several major choreographies for California Ballet and other companies; and a long list of students who have gone on to stellar careers as dance performers and administrators. Bill W. Stacy, Jan. 4, 85 He was the founding president of California State University San Marcos. Stacy accepted the San Marcos post in September 1989 and began building the nation’s first new state university in more than 20 years. The university opened in rented office space in August 1990. The school moved into new buildings at its current location two years later and continued to grow rapidly. Stacy helped plan and obtain funding for the construction of the university’s buildings. He hired the faculty, assembled a curriculum and recruited students. When Stacy left San Marcos in 1997 to return to his home state as chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Chatanooga, the San Marcos campus had almost 4,500 students and offered 19 bachelor’s degrees, 15 teaching credentials and nine master’s degrees. Today, Cal State San Marcos has more than 16,000 students and more than 20 buildings on 300 acres.