From almost the moment that I stepped onto the UK campus with the intent of obtaining a degree in art, I heard a name. It was at the summer advising conference. It wasn't people bitching about a teacher they hated, it was a recommendation. Study with Ross, they said. Ross Zirkle is a great teacher, they said. He's my favorite professor.

Over the course of my first year at UK, I knew only one thing for certain … which professor I was going to take for drawing.

So I did.

Since 2001, I took classes with Ross Zirkle as my schedule permitted. I remember the first day in his class and how he asked my name.

I was there when his sister died, watching how hard it was for him to talk about it in front of a few hundred students who wanted nothing better than to go home on a Friday afternoon.

He was always open to a student's individuality. He was always willing to forgive absences and give advice. He would talk to you, personally, about what you were doing, make cogent recommendations about who you should look at, what you might want to try. He was always enthusiastic about art, about teaching.

When I left school in 2005, it was with an incomplete in Ross's class. I had burned out on school in general, missed too many classes. For the next year, I had in my head “I've got to get back into the drawing studio and make it up to Ross.” In late spring/early summer 2006, I did get back in. Ross was the same as always, joking, cutting up, talking like Ross. (If you don't know Ross, you will have a hard time visualizing this, but any student of his would recognize the “Ross voice”.)

There was no hint of what was to come.

After I finished making up my absences, I got re-absorbed into my own problems. Later in the summer, probably less than a month since I'd last been in, Ross was diagnosed with cancer. It was not a mild cancer. It was Stage 4, which means it had already metastatized (spread to other organs). They gave him only until fall to live, but he beat those odds.

I did not discover any of this until I was preparing to return to school in December, attempted to take Independent Study with him again, and the advisor mentioned that they were not allowing Ross to teach it. I wound up taking painting instead.

When I came back to school in January, I saw Ross for the last time, in the hallway on my first day back. Same old Ross. I thought that I should take him out for drinks or something.

I never got the chance. Ross died Monday, March 12th.

There are few professors at UK with whom I have that have that level of interaction. Ross was the most important of them. Cheers.