Robert Burton Corbett

CORBETT, Mr. Robert Burton “Bob”, ultimately decided that life without NCAA March Madness, the 2020 Masters Tournament to enjoy on his birthday, and a complete 2019-2020 NBA basketball season was simply too much of a burden to bear. And so, on April 4, 2020, Bob chose to bid us farewell and depart for that giant track and field stadium in the sky where, among the heavens and the stars (and in the total absence of gravity), every discus he throws will soar farther than the 153’1” world record he set in 1963. No doubt his parents and the friends who preceded him are cheering him on.

Bob (“Bobby” at that time) was born on April 10, 1941, in Gila County Hospital and raised in the copper mining town of Miami, AZ. As a young boy Bob fished with his father, teased his sister and no doubt earned many a stern look from his mother. After losing his hearing at the age of five following a bout of spinal meningitis, Bob was enrolled in and attended Arizona School for the Deaf and the Blind (ASDB), from which he graduated in 1959. He subsequently attended Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, where he earned his Bachelor of Sciences Degree in Accounting in 1963.

Upon graduation Bob was employed by the U.S. Department of the Navy—first as a cost accountant with the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in Washington, DC, and then as a data quality analyst at Naval Medical Information and Management Center in Bethesda, MD. During his tenure he received a number of awards, including Employee of the Year and a Meritorious Civilian Service honor from the Office of the Secretary of Navy.

Bob was an exceptional athlete in both high school and college. In 1961 he competed for the United States in Helsinki, Finland, during the IX International Games of the Deaf. Over the course of his lifetime, he was inducted into four Halls of Fame – Gallaudet University, American Athletic Association for the Deaf (AAAD), U.S. Deaf Track and Field Federation and his Arizona alma mater, ASDB.

After work hours, from 1972 to 1990, Bob served as assistant track and field coach at Gallaudet. He also served as assistant coach for USA teams in the 1981 (Cologne, Germany), 1985 (Los Angeles, CA) and 1989 (Christchurch, New Zealand) World Games for the Deaf.

Bob’s love of fishing lasted a lifetime, and he often caught striped bass the size of great white sharks. In 1982 he became one of the founding members of the MarVa Silent Bass Anglers and served as the group’s treasurer for a number of years. More recently, Bob enjoyed connecting and reconnecting with friends near and far as well as with his classmates from the Gallaudet class of 1963 (“Go, Bison!”) Although Bob had many friends and acquaintances, his family wishes to extend special appreciation to Bob Seremeth for allowing “the other Bob” to always catch the biggest fish.

Bob is preceded in death by his father, Burton Bertram Corbett, and mother, Katherine Elizabeth Dayton Corbett. He is survived by his son, Richard Corbett, and his partner, Bryan Rowland, of Richmond, VA; his friend and co-parent, Lily Page Bess, of Richmond, VA; his sister, Diana Bussen, and her husband, David Bussen, of St. Louis, MO; his niece, Meredith Bussen, of Nashville, TN; his niece, Paige Bussen Lord, her husband, Daniel Lord, and their five children, of St. Louis, MO; and his niece, Brooke Bussen Smith, her husband C.E. Smith, and their three children, of Nashville, TN.

In accordance with his wishes, Bob will soon be physically reunited with his parents and the flowing waters of his beloved Arizona.

As for those of us left behind who have been touched by his kindness, his humor, and his humility…may we see not only planets and stars in each nighttime’s sky, but also the arc of a silvery discus—Bob’s discus—reminding us of his goodness and his love.