William J. Taffe

William J. Taffe, age 78, passed away at home in Rumney, NH on June 5, 2021. Bill was born in February 1943 in Albany, NY to Ellen Ann Upton and William Berchmanns Taffe Jr., and grew up in East Greenbush, NY. Bill earned his Bachelor's degree in Physics from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY and his PhD in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago. While in Chicago he met fellow graduate student Betty Jo Miller, and the two wed in 1965. They moved to Rumney in 1971 to raise their two sons. Bill joined the faculty at Plymouth State College, where he taught physics and founded the meteorology program. In 1982, Bill created the Department of Computer Science and served as Chair from the department's inception until 1998. He continued to teach in the department until his retirement in 2007. Aside from his core departmental role, Bill shaped the college through his many leadership roles. He chaired the Council of Department Chairmen, the Latin American Studies Council, and the College Planning Committee. He also advised the student Computer Science Club, served on the Writing Across the Curriculum Task Force, and was faculty observer to the University System of New Hampshire (USNH) Board of Trustees.

Bill was a true renaissance man, with interests spanning music and contradancing, technology, travel, Latin American culture, conservation, farming, sports, and the outdoors. He was a life-long learner, eager to share his acquired skills and knowledge with his family and ever-widening circle of friends. Bill and Betty Jo spent their initial years in Rumney operating a small farm, raising sheep, chickens, pigs and a goat. Bill learned haying and other farm skills from the local farmers and taught himself to shear sheep. An avid outdoorsman, Bill shared his passion for hiking the White Mountains, cross country skiing and bicycling with Betty Jo and his growing boys. His love for the outdoors eventually turned to birding, pursuing his "life list" and serving as a member of the NH Audubon Pemigewassett Chapter, a peregrine falcon observer for NH Audubon at the Rattlesnake Cliffs in Rumney, and Webmaster, Summer Season Editor and map maker for NH Bird Records. Although he had not played either sport, in his forties he began officiating soccer and lacrosse at the high school and collegiate level, often going directly from a Plymouth State faculty meeting to the playing field to referee.

In his mid-forties, Bill announced that he wanted "to learn Spanish and start traveling throughout Latin America." Bill and Betty Jo studied Spanish at language schools in Mexico, Guatemala and Ecuador as well as at Plymouth State and began over a decade and a half of travels in Mexico, Central and South America. Realizing that the only way to perfect their newfound language skills was to live somewhere "Spanish-speaking," Bill and Betty Jo moved to Quito, Ecuador for a year where Bill taught Computer Science at the Catholic University of Ecuador. He later taught at The National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics (INAOE), a research center located in a small village near Puebla, Mexico. While at INAOE, Bill and Betty Jo studied the Aztec language Nahuatl at the local cultural center.

Bill was active in local civic life, serving on the Rumney planning board, as a member of the Rumney EMS squad, Town Emergency Management Director and Town Health Officer. He was also a volunteer EMT with the state-wide Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS), a member of the Plymouth arear Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), and a volunteer with the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). For almost two decades he was a board member and was later president of the Quincy Bog Natural Area/Pemi-Baker Land Trust. He revived the Quincy Bog Notes newsletter and created the first Quincy Bog website, implemented a committee-centered governance system, and led the board in becoming a land trust as well as a natural area. Advancing the organization's mission of "Conserving Land and Connecting People with Nature" was his passion.

In his later years, Bill was active with the ham radio community, a member of both the Central NH Amateur Radio Club and the Twin State Radio Club, often providing communications support for regional events such as the Prouty Annual Fundraising Event and the Mount Washington Road Race. He was also an Assistant Emergency Coordinator for the Central NH Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), serving as a radio volunteer providing backup communications at Speare Memorial Hospital in times of crisis.

From childhood when he sang around the piano with his siblings and church organist mother, music was always an important part of Bill's life. During the stressful end of his doctoral studies, while waiting to learn if his dissertation would be accepted, he taught himself to play the guitar to pass the time. When he later moved to New Hampshire, Bill briefly led a folkmass band at St. Matthew's Church in Plymouth and became a founding member of the Pemigewassett Choral Society. He also sang with the "Faculty Foursome" barbershop quartet at Plymouth State. For several years while their sons were in early elementary school, Bill and Betty Jo led weekly folk-music sing-alongs at their school. In his late fifties Bill learned to play the concertina, playing traditional and contra dance music as part of the band "Rhubarb Pie" (so-named because sessions usually ended with dessert, especially Betty Jo's famous rhubarb pie). Bill and Betty Jo discovered contra dancing in their sixties, and this became a weekly activity, often with their close friends Mike and Linda O'Donnell. During what became annual winter RV camping trips to the southwest, they often stopped at local dances along the way. Over the years they camped in Texas, the Southwest and Southern California, accompanied by their border collie Kip and later by Australian Shepherds Tag and Kai, enjoying numerous public parks as well as self-contained camping in the desert.

Bill is survived by his wife of 55 years, Betty Jo, his sons Daniel and Michael and their families, his sisters Patricia and Marybeth and their families, his brother Terrence, and by the families of his late brothers John Thomas and Christopher.

There will be a Celebration of Life on Wednesday, July 21st, from 2:00 to 4:30 at The Barn on the Pemi, 341 Daniel Webster Highway, Plymouth, NH. Please RSVP to Betty Jo at bjtaffe@gmail.com by July 1. In consideration of others, anyone not fully vaccinated against Covid is asked to wear a mask.

Gifts may be made in Bill's honor to the Pemi-Baker Land Trust - Bill Taffe Land Conservation Fund. Contributions can be made online at www.quincybog.org by clicking on the donation button on the lower right on the home page, then selecting "Use this donation for" and clicking on "Bill Taffe Land Conservation Fund." Alternatively, contributions can be mailed to Pemi-Baker Land Trust, Bill Taffe Land Conservation Fund, P.O. Box 90, Rumney, NH 03266.