Girard V. Thompson, Jr. M.D.
1935-2007
Monroe Patterson, Jr.
1948-2007
Take a break...spend some time with your family and friends. Life is too short.
http://www.wpcva.com/articles/2007/04/18/chatham/obituaries/obit10.txt
http://www.legacy.com/RegisterBee/DeathNotices.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=87179295
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Community mourns 'icon'
By SUSAN ELZEY
Register & Bee staff writer
Saturday, April 14, 2007
DANVILLE - When Monroe Patterson died suddenly at Danville Regional Medical Center on Tuesday, the community lost a man whom friends remember as a kind, intelligent person whose desire was to better his community.
At the time of his death, Patterson was employed as the hospital’s service credit coordinator. Outside of work, his influence was felt throughout the community.
“Patterson was a fixture at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research,” Tim Franklin, executive director of the Institute, wrote in a letter submitted to the newspaper Friday.
“One Thursday each month, rain or shine, Monroe was here as a volunteer, manning our reception desk in our atrium and helping with any task he was asked to do, big or small. Monroe was also here every month as a member of the SCALE-UP Board, an area advocacy group to which he devoted much of his time and energy.”
Franklin wrote that Patterson had energy in abundance, which he put into service for his community.
“Those of us who knew Monroe understood that it wasn’t so much what Monroe did, but what he was: committed, always constructive, thoughtful, wise,” Franklin wrote. “Monroe was a leader whose greatest quality may have been his habit of being present.
“By this, I not only mean that he showed up; I mean that whatever Monroe did, he did it with his whole self. Monroe Patterson will be missed.”
Danville City Councilman Pete Castiglione, dean of student development at Danville Community College, also worked with Patterson. He remembers Patterson as one of the “touchstones” of his life to whom he could turn for advice and perspective on many issues in the community.
“He and I have served on a lot of community organizations through the years,” Castiglione said Friday. “But, specifically, he became active with the college when we opened the first neighborhood center in the Camp Grove neighborhood. He has been on board there and has worked to develop the programming courses at the Camp Grove neighborhood.”
Patterson also was a member of a HUD-funded program to increase the college’s outreach into neighborhoods and traveled with the DCC staff to present the results of the programs nationally.
“He was quiet, but he was a strong individual with strong resolve,” Castiglione said. “He was a very humble person. He had a good way of looking at things that helped me gain perspective.
“I just spoke with him last week. I know he was very dedicated to seeing the community needs of the underprivileged being met and helping them have productive lives and access to health care or education.”
Patterson had worked at Danville Regional Medical Center for 32 years. One of his co-workers for 14 of those years was Traci Fitz, currently a health care worker with Piedmont Access to Health Services. She called his sudden death “a tragedy.”
Fitz remembers Patterson as one of the first people to welcome her to the hospital when she began in 1992.
“He is such as icon,” Fitz said Friday. “Any type of business advice you needed, he was the one to go to because he was neutral. He could cut right to the heart of the problem and give you relief. He always had a solution.”
She said she saw Patterson just last week while visiting a patient at the hospital.
“I don’t think the community realizes what an icon we have lost,” Fitz said. “He was a kind man, and he never met a stranger. He did so much in the community.
“He was a father, a big brother; whatever you went to him about, he had an answer. He was one of the most intelligent men I’ve ever come across. He is really going to be missed.”
Danville Vice Mayor Sherman Saunders had known Patterson all his life.
“He was a role model for anyone - child or adult,” Saunders said Friday. “He was always willing to volunteer to help any good cause and always gave his best in doing so.”
Saunders remembered that Patterson served as a member of the board of directors at Pittsylvania County Community Action Inc. for five years and only missed one meeting during that time, and that was because he was out of town.
“He always worked hard and gave his best,” Saunders said. “A role model, a role model.”
Saunders said he had visited Patterson’s family and they “are doing the best they can.”
Then today...in the blink of an eye....the families of so many college students are changed in the blink of an eye.
Virginia Tech, our prayers are with you.
People should live each day as if it was their last. We need to pray and believe. God is good. All the time. My heart and prayers go out to Mr. Patterson's family and the students, staff and family members of the Virginia Tech body.
Also quite a loss this weekend in the sudden passing of Dr. Thompson.
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