Robert Patrick Green

1947 - 2022

Robert Patrick Green

Robert Patrick Green, known to all as Bobby, died peacefully in his sleep on May 4, 2022, at his home in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was born on April 8, 1947, the first of five children raised by Robert Louis Green and Patricia Headley Green. Bobby grew up on thoroughbred horse farms in Kentucky, where he met and married Emma Jackson Parrish, his loving wife of more than fifty years.

Bobby's educational career was anything but academic. At fourteen, he won the Central Kentucky 4-H junior tractor driving contest. He was President of the Student Council in junior high school and King of the Senior Prom and Sweetheart Ball in senior high school. At the University of Virginia, from which he graduated in 1969, Bobby was President of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, President of the Class of 1969, Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief of the Corks and Curls, King of the IMP Society, a member of the Mystic Order of Eli Banana, Chair of the University Union Rock Concert Committee, and President of Skull & Keys. He also won the IM Badminton Singles and Doubles Championships.

Following graduation from UVA, Bobby devoted himself to all aspects of farming and agricultural management. His career began in Central Kentucky and took him and his family to Southwest Georgia from 1975 until 1990.

Bobby operated plantation and farm management firms, including First Land Management, Georgia's second largest by acres under management. He was one of the handful of farmers responsible for the resurgence of cotton in the state. In 1985, Bobby grew 4,800 acres of cotton, the largest crop in Georgia. He built King Cotton Gin in Lee County and was the chief operating officer of F&W Gins, the highest volume ginning operation east of the Mississippi. Bobby specialized in irrigated row crop farming and grew numerous other crops including peanuts, field corn, Irish potatoes, and pink-eyed, purple-hulled peas. He was an Accredited Farm Manager, Vice-Chair of the Georgia Horse Foundation, a member of the Triple Nine Society, and the Indoor Birdwatchers Society of Albany.

Bobby's consulting projects were unusual and far flung. He managed ostrich farms in Abu Dhabi and rice mills in Benin. He supervised the quarantine and shipment of ostriches and emus from Texas to China. He co-authored the 1994 USAID Survey of Agricultural Privatization in Russia and managed the site selection and lease negotiations for a U.S. retailer in Saint Petersburg.

After returning to Charlottesville in 1990 with his family, Bobby worked as a real estate broker with Sloan Manis and immersed himself in alumni work. He served as Chair or Co-Chair of the Class of 1969's 25th, 30th, 35th, 45th, and 50th Reunions. Bobby Co-Chaired the Eli Banana's 125th Anniversary, the 150th Anniversary of the ETA Chapter of DKE, and the 175th Anniversary of DKE International. In 2019 he was named President of the Thomas Jefferson Society of Alumni.

Bobby was a director of DKE International, a founding director of The Eli Banana Fund, and a founding board member of the UVA Fraternity Alumni Council, serving as its President and Vice-President several times. In 2010, he received the Purple Shadows Gordon F. Rainey Award for Vigilance to the Student Experience for leading the $1.5 million capital campaign to expand and maintain the DKE house. Bobby was a member of the Wequetonsing Golf Club and the Diamonds in the Rust Tractor Club, both in Michigan.

Bobby truly never met a stranger and will always be remembered for his welcoming spirit and unrivaled sense of humor. He deeply loved his family, his friends, the University of Virginia, good dogs, poetry, music, John Deere tractors and cotton pickers, playing badminton, the Mystic Order of Eli Banana, flowers, complex real estate transactions, the IMP society, humility and humor, and good dirt. His grace and humor during his thirteen year battle with prostate cancer were an inspiration to everyone who knew him.

Bobby is survived by his loving wife, Emma, and their four children, Elijah "Eli" Tevis Green (Julia), Huston deWaal Green (EE), Liza Jane Haggin Green (Joel Loveday), and Galen Parrish Green. He was adored by his four grandchildren, William Headley Green, Mary Parrish Green, Robert Jackson "Jack" Green, and Benton Patricia Green. His family would like to thank Ilona Sage and Hospice of the Piedmont, as well as Megan Miller and her team, for their compassionate care.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 14, 2022, at Alumni Hall, 211 Emmet St. South, in Charlottesville.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a gift to the Bob Green Fund for Prostate Research at the University of Virginia Cancer Center: http://get-involved.uvahealth.com/goto/BobGreen