[KB] Sad News about Robert Wess

[David Blakesley]

Dear Burkelers:

I'm sorry to be the bearer of sad news. Bob Wess passed away earlier this
week after a long and heroic battle with cancer. Bob was eighty-one. I was
in touch with Bob until just before Thanksgiving, when he told me he was
moving to a hospice. Bob's wife Sandra told me his health declined rapidly
after the move.

For the last six months, I was fortunate to work with Bob on his new
book, *Philosophical
Turns: Epistemological, Linguistic, and Metaphysical*, which is due out
from Parlor Press by the end of this month. Bob got to see the final proof
just ten days ago.

Bob was exceptionally smart, one of those "scary smart" people who could
see right to the heart of the matter. We enjoyed talking about golf. (He
was as good on the golf course as he was with a Burke idea.) He advised me
on which players to pick on my fantasy golf team for the past couple of
years, so that helped. Thirty-two years ago, Bob attended my first
presentation about KB in New Harmony, Indiana, and told me to "stick with
it, Dave."

Bob served as the President of the Kenneth Burke Society from 2005 to 2008.
He also received the Society's Distinguished Service Award in 1999 and the
Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. Bob attended the first 1984 conference
at which the Kenneth Burke Society was formed.

In addition to *Philosophical Turns*, Bob was the author of *Kenneth Burke:
Rhetoric, Subjectivity, Postmodernism* (1996) and coeditor (with Jack
Selzer) of *Kenneth Burke and His Circles *(2008).

Bob's obituary page is here, with details pending:
https://www.demossdurdan.com/obituaries/Robert-Wess/#!/Obituary

I hope you join me in raising a glass in Bob's honor. Here's to you, Bob!

Dave
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