Robert Clyde Stanford, a 24 year-old pre-dental student at Southern Missionary College, died April 15 while answering an alarm with the Tri-Community Volunteer Fire Department to save a burning store and service station in Summit on Lee Highway. Stanford, an experienced electrician, was cutting high tension wires so that the other firemen could fight the blaze when he was electrocuted.

Memorial services were held on the school campus in Collegedale, TN on April 16, 1953. Funeral services were held the following day at the Salem Baptist Church near Tifton, GA. The Collegedale based Tri-Community Volunteer Fire Department firefighters were pallbearers.

Bob was born and reared in Omega, GA, where he also received his high school education. Following his graduation, as valedictorian, from the Omega High School he served for four years in the U.S. Navy as a radar technician. After his release from the service, he worked in the ship yards in Jacksonville, Florida, as an electronic radar and sonar engineer. Bob married Betty Ruth Frazier on February 11, 1951. They moved to Collegedale and he enrolled as a pre-dental student in September of 1952. He worked in the college maintenance department as an electrician while attending classes. Bob and Betty had a son, Michael Terry, born November 29, 1952.

In the minds of his friends there will always remain a picture of Bob’s cheerfulness under all circumstances, his faithfulness in whatever he did, and the supreme unselfishness of his life.