Alexander "Sandy" Kunzer

1941 - 2025

Alexander "Sandy" Kunzer
August 1, 1941 - March 27, 2025
Alexander "Sandy" Kunzer was born August 1, 1941 in New York City to Edward Kunzer and Ena Hourwich Kunzer. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth "Betsy" Kunzer. When he was four, the family moved out to Melville on Long Island. Sandy likes to say he was raised in the woods by his dog, Sparky. He went to a nearby 2-room school through grade school and graduated from Half Hollow Hills High School. He had an early interest in cars and racing which he never lost. He completed a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry at C.W. Post (now LIU). From college he volunteered in the Army and went to OCS at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. After OCS (where he earned the nickname Dead Man from the number of times he ended up in hospital from the heat) he was detailed to teach missile ordinance at Fort Sill. In his off time he took a few geology courses, raced cars and, when he was released from the Army, enrolled at the University of Oklahoma where he got a Masters in Geology. While there, he met Betsy McAnally at a drunken New Years party. They married in August, 1969. On their honeymoon in Banff and Jasper, he introduced her to rocks and birding and she introduced him to botany. They both took lots of photos. Travel, nature, photography and sharing their knowledge became an ongoing passion for both of them. He went to work for Shell Oil at their Denver office in September 1969 as a developmental geologist. However, in 1970 the oil business took one of its downturns and he ended up working for the Army Corps of Engineers in Buffalo, New York. He worked on de-watering and evaluating the American side of Niagara Falls. In 1973 he transferred to the New Orleans office and worked, among other things, on Lock and Dam 1 on the red River in the effort to make Tuscaloosa, Texas a seaport. It was here he became an expert in soils because there was so little rock in southern Louisiana. In 1976 the Corps sent them to Minneapolis for six months for Sandy's graduate training in Geotechnical Engineering. In 1979 they returned to Denver where he became a dam doctor for the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Geology. He worked mostly Pacific Northwest checking out older dams for problems and possible solutions but also spent a fair amount of time working on Senator Wash Dam near Yuma, AZ. While in Denver, he also became very involved in Lakewood city business and served for a while on the Lakewood Planning Commission and they bought a condo in Silverthorne for skiing, biking and hiking. Because Betsy had serious sinus problems with the Denver air quality, they spent about 10 years vacationing to areas they thought they might enjoy living. Sandy discovered Sierra Vista on the internet in 1996 and, after visiting in three different seasons, he and Betsy bought land there and started designing their retirement home. In 2000 they had the house built, retired and moved there in January of 2001. They traveled, birded and photographed all over, taking at least one big trip (Alaska, New Zealand, Iceland, Mexico, Belize, Jamaica, Galapagos, Svalbard , Norway, Ireland, Great Britain, Panama, USA) a year but otherwise spent most of their time in Sierra Vista. Sandy racked up over 8000 hours volunteering at Ramsey Canyon Preserve, participated in the annual Wet/Dry mapping of the San Pedro River, led bird walks on the San Pedro, helped on the Christmas Bird Counts and surveying of the Important Bird Area near the San Pedro house. He and Betsy taught a soils course for the Master Naturalists program, presented slide shows on their trips and nature subjects and he filled in one semester teaching a geology course for Cochise College. He also served on the Readers Advisory Board at the Sierra Vista Herald newspaper. Until his stroke in 2013, he was an engaging, eloquent walk leader and teacher who was a go-to for local geology questions and also known for his horrible puns. The stroke took much of his easy speech but he still engaged with people and continued to travel and photograph until 2024 when he was in hospital for heart surgery for almost a month only to be told he had only 1% blood flow to his heart, was ineligible for surgery and should go home and go on hospice. Even confined mostly to a wheelchair, he continued to drive and photograph and bird watch and amazed his nurse by how "normal" his vitals were. In late March, only two weeks from the anniversary of going into the hospital, he had a bad day and felt some pain across the top of his chest but seemed to recover. Two days later on March 27, 2025 he died suddenly at home in bed. He is buried in the Southern Arizona Memorial Military Cemetery in Sierra Vista. A memorial will be held at the Military Cemetery Chapel on April 17 at 11 a.m., please arrive by 10:45 a.m. Please, no flowers - he was allergic and it would bring back too many memories. If you wish to donate, please donate to the Ramsey Canyon Stewardship Endowment fund by sending a check made out to The Nature Conservancy with RCSE in the memo portion to Mark Ryan, TNC, 1510 East Fort Lowell Rd, Tucson AZ 85715 or contact Mark about it at mdryan@tnc.org. Otherwise, find a pretty rock for your garden and think of Sandy.