Forty-four years ago Bob Day started his teaching career at Everett Junior College, moving to the state of Washington with his wife Nancy from his home in California.

Back in the foregone days of Everett Junior College, Day taught ancient and medieval history, which he would teach through Everett Community College's name change and until he would eventually retire in 1996.

On September 11, 2001 Day was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and on May 3, 2009 Day passed away after his eight-year battle with cancer.

Even after his retirement, Day kept a close relationship with many of the faculty that he had started at the college with.

His wife, Nancy Day, said Bob enjoyed his association with other members of the faculty more than anything in his tenure with the college.

"He has maintained that friendship in the [14] years since he retired," Day said.

Throughout his career, Day kept a good relationship with fellow staff such as Bob Peterson and Gary London, who are both currently retired, as well as current history instructor Tom Gaskin.

Gaskin worked with Day for 20 years and said that Day was considered a strong, knowledgeable and demanding teacher by him as well as other faculty members.

"As a person, he was a very wise and generous individual," Gaskin said. "His advice and insight into things was very strong." Gaskin added, "I would be thinking about an issue and he would speak and dissect it and come up with a rational solution that I couldn't have thought of."

Gaskin, like Day, began teaching here at EvCC after moving with his wife from his home in California.

Gaskin said that when they moved to Washington, Day and his wife Nancy extended out to the Gaskin family and invited them over for dinner.

"There is a little bit of an age difference between us and sometimes it is hard for a faculty member who has been here for a while to connect with a newer faculty member," Gaskin said. "[The newer faculty] are younger and they have their own interests, but in [Day's] case he really tried to extend out to us and helped us become more comfortable in a new setting like they once were in."

Gaskin along with former EvCC instructor Jerry Jones, who worked with Day for almost his entire career, said that he was always nice to people and always had something positive to say.

"Day was nice to people, professional and approachable to students and faculty," Jones said.

Even when he was diagnosed with cancer on September 11, 2001 he still kept a positive attitude and a good outlook.

"I would run into him occasionally at Trader Joe's or somewhere else, and even though I could tell he was having some difficulties, he was still very positive and energetic to see me," Gaskin said. "He still had a wonderful outlook even though he was facing such a deadly disease, and I thought that was absolutely remarkable."

Day is lived by his wife Nancy, his daughter Diana and his eight grandchildren.