Obituaries and deaths

Ivan William Buddenhagen was born in Ventura, Calif., in 1930 to Harold J. Buddenhagen, a petroleum geologist, and Pearl M. Buddenhagen, a teacher and homemaker. He died at his Davis, Calif., home on July 9, 2022. He would have approved of his simple coffin, crafted of pine that had been felled by drought and beetles, and adorned with messages and drawings from his beloved family.  A sprawling bouquet of his favorite plants, including banana, served as a botanical mantle atop his coffin.

Trisha “Tris” Nicole Sabay Yasay was a cherished and beloved student in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences. Her untimely death in a collision on May 25 leaves a hole in our classrooms, at our Student Farm, in our homes and in our hearts.

“The community of students, staff and faculty of Department of Plant Sciences express their deep condolences to the family of Tris,” department Chair Gail Taylor said. “We are all devastated by the loss of her life. At our Plant Sciences Symposium today, we observed a minute of silence to hold Tris and her family in our thoughts.”

Michael G. Barbour, noted ecologist and professor emeritus in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis, passed away on Jan. 7 due to complications from a longstanding illness. He was 78.

Lynn W. Gallagher, retired project scientist and barley breeder at the University of California, Davis, died on Dec. 15, 2020. He was 77.

Gallagher was born in San Francisco and raised in Marin County. He earned a B.A. in political science at UC Davis with his sights set on a law career. After his graduation, he joined the peace corps where he taught primary school for two years on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, before joining an agricultural project on the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya.