Recovery Board
: RfM
Recovery from Mormonism (RfM) discussion forum.
This is another obit - this name many of you will recognize, though I doubt you are aware of his level of involvement in the gay community, and the arts community.
Here's his published obituary - no paywall, and I encourage you to click through and read it. Like Lynn Conway (this must be my day for reposting obits!) his is a remarkable story.
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/saltlaketribune/name/bruce-bastian-obituary
I knew Bruce as a CS student. When I got back off my mission, I took a course in the brand new Computer Science major at BYU, data structures, to my mind, the first "real" computer science course. The prof was Alan Ashton, and I sat middle row, second seat back. The guy sitting in front of me was a music major named Bastian. My thought was what the hell is a music major doing in a course like this?
Alan and Bruce went on to found WordPerfect. So I could have had a completely different life, but I picked the wrong seat the first day of class. ;)
Troy Williams is a long-time gay rights activist in Utah who talks in the obituary about Bruce's involvement in the gay and human rights community. As fate would have it, I also know Troy well, even moreso than I knew Bruce. Small world.
Bruce gave away tons of money. I wasn't aware of all the gay rights funding he did, but I was aware of much of the arts funding. I think it would be a shorter list to list the arts organizations he hasn't funded through the B W Bastian Foundation.
One facet the obituary does not go into was how hard it was for Bruce to come out as gay. It did not go smoothly. He got married at BYU and had 5 children. He was TBM, WordPerfect was a very Mormony company. The company brought in professionals from all over the US for training on WordPerfect, and the company cafeteria did not serve coffee, because, you know. After much customer rebellion and complaint, they added coffee in the cafeteria.
Anyway, messy divorce, they both erected competing mansions in Orem. After she passed away, hers, probably too big to sell, got donated to Utah Valley University as an art museum. In the early 90s, pre-divorce, rumors of his being gay flew thick and fast, and he was anything but a gay rights activist. When the dust finally settled, he clearly changed his mind about that.
I left Mormonism as a relatively anonymous computer nerd, living outside Utah. I can hardly imagine what it must have been like to be rich and famous and closely associated with BYU and coming out as gay and exMormon. Ouch.
Here's his published obituary - no paywall, and I encourage you to click through and read it. Like Lynn Conway (this must be my day for reposting obits!) his is a remarkable story.
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/saltlaketribune/name/bruce-bastian-obituary
I knew Bruce as a CS student. When I got back off my mission, I took a course in the brand new Computer Science major at BYU, data structures, to my mind, the first "real" computer science course. The prof was Alan Ashton, and I sat middle row, second seat back. The guy sitting in front of me was a music major named Bastian. My thought was what the hell is a music major doing in a course like this?
Alan and Bruce went on to found WordPerfect. So I could have had a completely different life, but I picked the wrong seat the first day of class. ;)
Troy Williams is a long-time gay rights activist in Utah who talks in the obituary about Bruce's involvement in the gay and human rights community. As fate would have it, I also know Troy well, even moreso than I knew Bruce. Small world.
Bruce gave away tons of money. I wasn't aware of all the gay rights funding he did, but I was aware of much of the arts funding. I think it would be a shorter list to list the arts organizations he hasn't funded through the B W Bastian Foundation.
One facet the obituary does not go into was how hard it was for Bruce to come out as gay. It did not go smoothly. He got married at BYU and had 5 children. He was TBM, WordPerfect was a very Mormony company. The company brought in professionals from all over the US for training on WordPerfect, and the company cafeteria did not serve coffee, because, you know. After much customer rebellion and complaint, they added coffee in the cafeteria.
Anyway, messy divorce, they both erected competing mansions in Orem. After she passed away, hers, probably too big to sell, got donated to Utah Valley University as an art museum. In the early 90s, pre-divorce, rumors of his being gay flew thick and fast, and he was anything but a gay rights activist. When the dust finally settled, he clearly changed his mind about that.
I left Mormonism as a relatively anonymous computer nerd, living outside Utah. I can hardly imagine what it must have been like to be rich and famous and closely associated with BYU and coming out as gay and exMormon. Ouch.