Robert F. Lewis II ’63

Bob died Dec. 4, 2023, in his hometown of Santa Fe, N.M., from the lingering effects of traumatic brain injury suffered years earlier when he slipped on ice.

Bob came to Princeton from Fort Lauderdale High School, where he was president of the student council, graduation speaker, and a finalist in the National Merit and National Honor Society tests. An English major, he wrote his thesis on Robert Frost, took his meals at Quadrangle Club, and was a member of WPRB and vice president of the University Press Club. His roommates, who became lifetime friends, were Roger Collins, Chip Morse, and Bill Helm. “Bob was a scholar, always a scholar, and a very gentle, very loyal guy,” said Bill.

Bob worked for Prudential Insurance, retiring in 1998 as president of its disability management services unit. Prudential “enabled me to marry (twice, lastly to a Pru employee), have two children, get an MBA, work and live in upstate NY, Los Angeles, Houston, and Tokyo along the way, and retire comfortably to Santa Fe,” he wrote in his entry in our 50th-reunion yearbook.

Bob earned a master’s degree in management from Rutgers in 1971 and a Ph.D. in American studies from the University of New Mexico in 2006. He wrote his doctoral thesis on baseball, a lifetime passion. That led to him publishing Smart Ball, an account of MLB’s progression as a global business brand that continues to appeal to a consumer’s sense of an idyllic past in the midst of a fast-paced, and often violent, present.

Bob is survived by daughter Jennie and son Brian. His wife, Dianna, died in 2019.