Edmond Christian Davis

1947 - 2017

Edmond Christian Davis, PhD, died September 17th, 2017, at his home in Yuma.

Edmond, aka 'Ed From Yuma' was born November 18, 1947 in Medford, Oregon, and resided there until leaving for college at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

He completed his BA and MA in English at the University of Oregon, and earned his Doctorate in English at Ohio State University.

For the last fourteen years of his working life, 2000-2014, Ed was an English Professor at Arizona Western College (AWC). Ed is well known in the community for his televised class, "The Bible as Literature". He thoroughly enjoyed teaching the wonderful students at AWC, and working with a great group of colleagues.

In the 1980s and 90s, Ed spent some time working in the kite business on the Oregon Coast and in Monterey, California.

This was a time of artistry and craftsmanship in the kite business. Ed enjoyed demonstrating these wonderful kites, so he and his colleague were asked to do a kite demonstration on the beach next to the highway. One afternoon on the Oregon coast, traffic on the highway came to a slow crawl as the motorists enjoyed the show of the beautiful kites.

Always a lover of good food and wine, Ed's affinity to food in all its manifestations began at an early age by the wonderful meals his mom cooked. He often recalled the family story where his parents joined the country club to have access to its kitchen and variety of cuisines.

For his 12th birthday, his mother fixed a fancy dinner for Ed and a group of his teenaged friends. This turned out to be a mistake when the other boys, not interested in fine food, started flinging it around the dining room in a food fight.

Later in life, Ed became a foodie, and was a contributing blogger for the popular San Diego food blog, MMM-Yoso; many times, incognito, he wrote wonderful, descriptive reviews of his restaurant meals for the blog. Ed also loved sharing meals with others and for more than a decade he met for lunch weekly, at various Yuma restaurants, with his Friday "Lunch Bunch", a group of folks that enjoyed eating and exchanging puns and bad jokes.

Ed was a reader, a voracious reader; he had books stacked floor to ceiling, on top of the bookcases, in his closet and on every available surface.

Ed loved reading history books of all sorts: of food, of wine, cultural regions with their specific focus; he read United States history, global history, anything art related, baseball and its history, and biblical archeology.

Ed met and undoubtedly influenced a diverse group of people over his lifetime; given the number of students in his classes we can easily reach the number 5000 and counting, to describe his wide impact, like a pebble dropped in a pond.

Ed is survived by his wife, Tina Sibley, his brother Chris Davis (Dani), aunt Marilyn Mulhall, cousin Carol Lipori, friends Greg Berkey (LoiDene), Steve Rubin (Helen), and Jane Hascall, as well as his beloved doggie, Chloe.

Ed's life will be celebrated with a gathering of family and friends later in the Fall. The family greatly appreciates the wonderful care provided by Hospice Compassus.