Various memories:
• Tim was with me in Mrs. Harris’ third grade class at Liberty Elementary. I remember Tim as the best athlete in the class. He was strong for his age and very competitive.
• Mrs. Harris had a game with a Nerf ball where everyone would sit on their desks and we’d throw the ball around to each other. If you dropped the ball or made a bad pass you had to sit down. The last one up got a sticker with gold stars reading “Champ.” Tim accumulated more of these than anyone else (though I won a few—maybe I was second or third in the class). In fact, Mrs. Harris had to change the rules so that it wasn’t enough to throw the Nerf ball accurately; you also had to throw it softly. Tim, you see, could already throw the ball accurately with such force that it was virtually uncatchable by any of the girls in the class and most of the boys.
• Tim and I were on the same 6th grade little league baseball team. I played right field, where I proved less of a liability than if I’d played anywhere else except maybe “bench.” Tim was a starting pitcher, and a good one. His pitching, along with Mark Hinthorn’s, got us to the league playoffs. He was also a heckuva a batter. We forfeit the league championship (to a team who probably would’ve beaten us anyway) when our catcher put his hand through a plate glass window, and we couldn’t field a team. The league gave both teams first place trophies and let the other team advance to district.
• I didn’t see much of Tim in middle school or high school. I seem to vague recall that he had a knee injury that prevented him from playing high school football. Don’t know if that’s true or not. I do know that he had a very fine high school baseball career at Sprague. Pretty sure he was all-state.
Apparently after high school Tim attended the University of Oregon and graduated from Willamette University with a degree in Economics. He went on to an investment career, working with high net worth clients. The cause of death was not mentioned, but whatever it was, it came too soon.