Dr. Richard Roller

Dr. Richard Joseph Roller died on Wednesday, November 25, 2020, at Swedish Medical Center in Englewood, Colorado, from complications of cancer. He was 75 years old. Joe will be remembered as a beloved husband, father, and grandfather; a skilled physician; a pillar of the Colorado birding community; a voracious reader; a musician (and the trombonist for the Boom Town Stompers); a lifelong learner and collector of knowledge; an avid gardener; an enthusiastic traveler to any place with interesting birds to see; a patient teacher; and a lover of puns and jokes. While many of these jokes weren’t especially funny, Joe nonetheless managed to make his wife laugh every single day for 43 years.

Joe was born in 1945 in Hannibal, Missouri. He attended Hannibal public schools. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Missouri, he completed medical school at Case Western Reserve University and moved to Denver to practice medicine in 1976. Joe worked as a gastroenterologist at St. Anthony’s Hospital until his retirement in 2009.

When not at the hospital, Joe could often be found birding all over Colorado, sometimes in his medical scrubs with his surgical mask still hanging around his neck alongside his binoculars. Joe’s passion for birding wore out his cars and took him to far-flung corners of Colorado and all seven continents—over the years, Joe visited Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Kenya, Antarctica, and Australia to see new birds. In recent years, Joe served as a hotspot reviewer for eBird (a birding database project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) for Colorado, Wyoming, and a variety of international conflict zones (including North Korea, Yemen, and the Republic of Georgia). Joe served as both the president (from 2015-2017) and a board member of Denver Field Ornithologists and also served several terms on the boards of Bird Conservancy of the Rockies and Colorado Field Ornithologists. While Joe was known for having seen more bird species in the state than any other eBirder, he is remembered most fondly within the Colorado birding community for his unfailing kindness, his conservation efforts, his humor, his patience as a teacher and mentor to new birders, and his knack for building community and supporting his fellow birders.

Above all else, Joe was devoted to his family. He married MaryAnne Cunningham in 1979 and cared for her through countless surgeries and many years of illness. Joe was an unflagging source of support and wisdom for his two sons. An Eagle Scout himself, Joe served as a leader of both his sons’ Boy Scout troops, as well as an ever-present spectator at their soccer games, swim meets, and whitewater kayaking competitions. As a grandfather, Joe delighted in introducing his four granddaughters to the joys of nature, music, and literature. He made it his mission to search out new books for his granddaughters to enjoy, and he always succeeded—they will remember their Papa as someone who “always found the best books.” Naturally, Joe’s granddaughters already display an uncanny ability to spot and identify Denver-area birds, a skill that has surprised more than one local preschool teacher.

Joe will be deeply missed by his family and friends, but the lessons he taught us will guide and shape us forever: Education is the best investment. Read every day. Respect nature. Even bad jokes are worth sharing. Default to decency. Always carry binoculars. And family is the most profound of life’s blessing—nurture it with care.

Joe is survived by his wife, MaryAnne; his sons Dan (Dwyer Gunn) and Tom (Sally); and granddaughters Evah Gunn-Roller, Clare Gunn-Roller, Katherine Roller, and Emily Roller (all of Denver). He is also survived by his sister, Merrilyn Parham of Hannibal, MO; his brother and sister-in-law, Jim and Carol Roller, of Columbia, MO; and many nieces, nephews, grandnieces, and grandnephews.

A funeral mass will be held on Friday, December 4 at 10 AM.  The family welcomes you to livestream the funeral mass at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHlrdT-XiDV8xNgbJ4_GU1g . The family will also host an in-person memorial service once it’s safe to gather. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Joe’s honor to:

Denver Field Ornithologists

Or

Colorado Field Ornithologists

https://cobirds.org/CFO/Membership/Donate.aspx

Or

Bird Conservancy of the Rockies

https://www.birdconservancy.org/donate/