Deceased January 9, 2013
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In Memory
Close friends were surprised and saddened to learn of Ross Scott's death on Jan. 9, 2013. Losing peers who are valued friends of such longstanding is just so very harsh. Memories, stories and even folklore easily come to mind in thinking of him.
Tall, and with definitive Prince Valiant-length blond hair back in the '70s, Ross is memorable on so many levels. Perhaps foremost, it took his close circle of Amherst friends well over a decade to start addressing him by his given name, rather than by his well-earned freshman year moniker. He came to Amherst from Sherborn, Mass., as an accomplished classical concert pianist. The term prodigy was used. Yet his very first freshman year oath may have been to set aside that joy and musical fluency, to be superseded by a new self-definition exercise, common to so many of us then. Getting him to play was like pulling proverbial teeth.
Ross was an entrepreneur for all his years, way before it was popular, or accruing any cachet. He typed every term paper I ever submitted, at about 90 wpm, on his signature IBM Selectric, now a high relic, including the plaintive cover memoranda thanking each professor for every extension received. Following Amherst, Ross remained in the area his entire life. In a natural extension, he founded Valley Typing immediately after graduation, and for a decade grew it into a respectable enterprise, headquartered above A. J. Hastings on Pleasant Street. Subsequently, he moved to South Deerfield and founded ARS Strategic Mail Services in Holyoke, whose success in direct-mail marketing will now survive him. He became greenbelt-equivalent in the intricacies of postal rates and regulations for his customers. I cannot name a drier or more arcane business niche, but he did it well and with pride for decades.
In our ivied, idyllic sphere, where high intelligence quotients were as pervasive as nitrogen in air, Ross always stood out, with characteristic subtlety. There was an aggressive but quiet competitiveness in Ross, too, especially in the library at 82 Lessey Street during poker games and backgammon mini-tournaments that were known to last all night and occasionally into the next. More of the world's problems were addressed and resolved in that room than in the Congressional chambers of today, fueled occasionally by malt beverages and assorted stimulants. No matter, the gaming was sufficient to Ross and something of a delightful proxy to any statistics and probability course to him. His lifetime return on the investment was a positive one, usually at the expense of fraternity brothers.
All through his college career, Ross had cats. The folklore holds that his most oft-quoted words were "Amy ..., Jamie ..., come here you darn (sic) cats!!" Similarly, in order to facilitate the old fraternity system, Ross contributed to recruiting processes by providing lengthy tours of the sacred boiler room to a very select cadre of candidates, assuring that the appropriate organizational attractions were conveyed. Nobody did it better. His signature vehicle was a metallic green 1969 Camaro SS. I sighed deeply when he told me he sold it, years ago. Numerous times, at unforgivably late hours, we would drive over to UMass, enter the quarter-mile practice oval behind the stadium through a fence opening, do laps at outrageous speeds for 15 minutes or so and leave, somehow without constabulary detection.
Ross was inevitably around at homecoming and reunions. He never sat still, and his great joys over and above home and family included skiing, primarily in Maine, and windsurfing on the Rhode Island coastline with friends in the summer. He was a closet bird watcher, in juxtaposition to other interests. Ross was above all a caring, gentle, quietly self-motivated person who was a serial victor over every single major challenge, and he maintained lifelong friendships. By his record, we see clearly he gave his small part to the Terras Irradient heritage.
The alumni poker table populated at Homecoming may be conspicuously quieter, and downright somber, this year, but we will save a seat. He leaves behind his partner of 21 years, Amy Sanderson, along with two stepsons, siblings and three nieces.
Respectfully submitted,
John Lacey ’73