I got word last weekend that a good friend from college days had passed away.

Jay Broze, legally Vincent Jay Broze, died on September 19, presumably in Walla Walla, Washington, where he and his wife returned just a couple of years ago.

We all attended Whitman College together. Jay and I joined the same fraternity, and managed to keep in sporadic touch over the years. Meda and I were lucky to spend quality time catching up with Jay when we were in Walla Walla in 2011.

More than anyone I know, Jay intentionally created and constantly recreated an amazing persona. He was a brilliant person who always amazed me with his ability to create the world he wanted to inhabit and position himself just where he wanted to be. He defined himself more consciously and more fully than anyone I’ve known.

Word of his death was accompanied by an email trail showing it had passed through layers of other friends from the period, many of whom obviously stayed in closer touch with each other than I.

I had to track back to the beginning of the chain of messages.

A great friend & very gallant gentleman, Jay Broze, “went West” early this morning, dying quietly in his sleep after more than a week bearing up bravely to the last stages of cancer. He died surrounded by family, and friends who maintained a a vigil night & day over the last few days of his life, offering support and encouragement to Jay which he gave them right back. Those of you who knew Jay know just what I mean. There is no good side to his passing, no homey homilie that I can think of; he leaves a hole in my life & in the lives of all his friends that no one will come along to fill. He leaves this World with many projects yet to be finished or even to be started.

Jay also earned a fine obit in the Seattle Times. Here’s one section, just to give a flavor of this very unique person.

After receiving a BA in History at Whitman College ’69, he went on to earn an MA at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, with

a concentration in Arabic Studies. He found both college and graduate programs enormously stimulating and they set the tone for his lifelong inquiry into practically everything. He returned to the Northwest once more and found work as a copywriter for George Lowe at Kraft Smith and Lowe. As Georg Lowe remembers it:

“Jay fit in perfectly- Johns Hopkins University- history degree–no agency experience, but he could write. A man of broad interests and powerful intellect, he could also discourse – brilliantly – on just about any subject…..Always fun, always brave, smart, and willing under any and all conditions. ”

Inquiry, writing, sailing, skiing, flying, and having fun would be the hallmarks of the rest of his life.

In the mid-seventies, Jay mailed an unsolicited story to SAIL magazine about the de-masting of a boat off the Washington coast. As Keith Taylor, editor at SAIL during that splendid era, tells it, “…I know it came across my desk and it was a wonderful piece. I seized on it like a hungry dog clamps onto a juicy bone. From then on Jay covered the America’s Cup for SAIL until I departed in ’88. His last assignment for me was Fremantle in ’87 when the Aussies unsuccessfully defended the Cup. His name was on the masthead of SAIL through the ’70s and ’80s. In ’83 in Newport, RI, he was one of the insiders who first understood what Aussie designer had achieved with Australia II’s winged-keel.

…. (He had) a wonderful wry quirky view of the world that endeared him to all he met. His ability to walk down a dock and greet old sailor friends, and make new ones, was unrivalled.”