Judith Kay Roach, a member of the Bristol Bird Club for nearly 25 years,
passed away Christmas Day, Dec 25, 2015, at the Holston Valley Hospital in
Kingsport.
Hamlett-Dobson Funeral Homes & Crematory of Kingsport will serve the family.
She had been active in the BBC events for years and served the club as
treasurer for two years until stepping down in May 2015. She had recently
served as a memer of the 2015 BBC nominating committee.
Judy first found her way into BBC on 7 Sept 1991 at Carver's Gap on Roan
Mountain when she learned of the club while participating in the Roan
Mountain Naturalist Rally.
Her first BBC activity was taking part in an eastern Sullivan County
waterfowl area field trip 3 Nov 1991 and she attended the club until she
became a member in Jan 1992. Two months later, on 16 March 1992, she was
part of a BBC field party that found a Great Horned Owl's nest at Steele
Creek Park along the park's eastern boundary.
She was frequently an active birder with the club, having trailored her boat
behind her car to area lakes and would launch, with friend Mary Jane Erwin,
to join birding trips on South Holston Lake with BBC.
One of her most exciting BBC involvements was a four-day, three-night New
Years birding trip to the Outer Banks of NC where BBC had a seafood dinner,
New Years Eve party and fireworks shot in the parking lot of a motel at
Manteo. The club participants birded 35 miles off shore along the islands,
31 Dec-3 Jan, with Rick Knight as leader.
She frequently took part in club picnics, banquets and Christmas parties as
well as bird hikes. She will be remembered on the Appalachian Trail with us
in Shady Valley where BBC adopted a couple who was hiking the Cross Mountain
portion of the AT on 17 June 1995 and we took them to our club picnic which
was held for years at the Ruritan Picnic Shelter on the school property in
Shady Valley.
Judy had a 67 percent attendance average for many years with the club until
health issues would not let her do as well.
She was a Birding Kingsport founding member and had worked as a technical
report writer at Eastman Chemical Products, Inc. She had lived at Paducah,
Ky., and was graduated from the University of Kentucky with a degree in
business education. She's also worked as an adult leader at First Broad
Street United Methodist Church in Kingsport..
She will be missed by birders throughout the region.
