Joel Brown (’03, ’09 M.B.A.), 36, of Roanoke, communications supervisor for the UNT Police Department, died Jan. 14. He was a 911 dispatcher for 16 years and received the Silent Hero award from the Texas Commission on State Emergency Communications and the UNT Police Department Civilian Employee of the Year for his work. Survivors include his wife Melinda “Mindy” Wolf Brown (’02) and three children ages 12, 10, and 7.

Patsy Patterson, 88, a longtime supporter of UNT, died Aug. 29 in Denton. She was a past co-owner of the Denton Record-Chronicle and served in various high-level positions there. She was a member of the Matthews Society and she started the Friends of the Symphony program at UNT to raise money for the symphony. She has endowed several scholarships in the UNT College of Music, including The Patsy C. and Fred W. Patterson String and Voice Scholarship, The Fred and Patsy Patterson Orchestra Endowed Scholarship, and The Patsy C. and Fred W. Patterson College of Music Scholarship Enrichment Fund. She also pledged to support UNT's National Merit Finalists and helped to raise $500,000 for the Chi Omega Sorority house. She was active in the Denton community, serving as president of the Arts Guild, the Denton Community Theater and the Denton Benefit League.

He was an incoming freshman who had dreamed of attending UNT since he was 8 years old.

Holden Gassaway Stucky, Denton :: He was a junior studying philosophy and had graduated from the Selwyn School, where he was an AP Scholar. He enjoyed cooking, was a craft beer connoisseur, loved cats and was known for traveling the campus on his longboard. As a youth, he sang with the Amarillo Boy Choir, participated in Boy Scouts and performed in Denton Community Theatre and Selwyn School productions.

Christian Scherff, Colleyville :: He was enrolled as a freshman biology major with dreams of becoming a doctor. He enjoyed hunting, fishing, playing baseball and working on sports cars, even building an award-winning diesel truck for his father.

Melvin Howard Moffitt Jr. (’92 M.S.), Double Oak :: He served in the U.S. Army where he received the Army Commendation Medal, the Purple Heart for wounds received in action and the Bronze Star. He was a member of the President’s Council at UNT and established the Dr. Jon Young Endowed Fund to support graduate students in educational psychology at the College of Education.

Alois Frank Kubica, Kerrville :: He worked as a CPA and retired as the CFO of Pioneer Resources in Midland. He was a member of UNT’s Kendall Society and donated to the accounting department in the College of Business. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.

Vivian Castleberry, 95, who broke barriers for women in journalism and supported UNT by founding the Castleberry Peace Institute, died Oct. 4 in Dallas. She began her career as a child by interviewing her neighbors in Larue for her own newspaper she wrote by hand. She wrote for the student newspapers in high school and at Southern Methodist University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree.

After graduation, she worked for a publishing company until she got an offer in 1956 to work for the Dallas Times Herald. She worked there on and off, between pregnancies, as home furnishings editor, women’s news editor and section editor. During her 28 years at the Times Herald, she tackled subjects that hadn’t been covered before — such as breast cancer, domestic abuse and disabilities — leading to numerous awards and honors. She later was the first woman named to the newspaper’s editorial board.

After retiring from the Times Herald in 1984, she was inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame. Three years later, she founded the nonprofit organization Peacemakers Inc. She had been a pacifist since she was a child, when her father had to cope with an injury sustained during World War I. As part of Peacemakers, she traveled to Russia several times as a “grassroots citizen diplomat” to attend conferences and interview Russians on their efforts to bring democracy to their country. She also chaired the Peacemakers’ First International Women’s Peace Conference in 1988.

Her activism led to the 2010 founding of the Castleberry Peace Institute, a collaboration between Peacemakers and UNT’s peace studies program. The institute sponsors cutting-edge research and educational programs on the causes of war and peace and is the only peace science research institute in the southern U.S. She was awarded the Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism’s most prestigious honor, the C.E. Shuford Hall of Honor Award. She also was the subject of a 2009 KERA documentary in the Texas Trailblazer series and was the author of several books.

Lawrence Montaigne (’84, ’85 M.A.), 86, died March 17 in Henderson, Nev. He worked as an associate professor of film at UNT in the 1980s. He spent the majority of his life working as an actor, dancer and stuntman. He appeared in such movies as The Great Escape and Escape to Witch Mountain and is best known for his appearances on the original Star Trek TV series – including roles as the first Romulan on the show in the “Balance of Terror” episode and as a Vulcan in the “Amok Time” episode and the “Of Gods and Men” mini-series. He wrote for Walt Disney Productions and penned his own autobiography, A Vulcan Odyssey. He also served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Ronda Janeene Johnson, 53, died Jan. 23 in Denton. She was born in Fort Myers, Florida. For 13 years, she was a manager for classroom support services at UNT, an area that designs, repairs and re-designs classroom technology. She retired in 2016.