He was perhaps the most well-liked of the 'strong' players in Colorado for his willingness to converse, play and analyze with the lower-ranked patzers.

He passed away at a relatively early age in the late 1970s.

He also gave one of the most popular Honors courses in the school's history - The Chess Tradition in Man's Culture. This class ran from 1968-1972 and was constantly over-booked. Eugene - faulted as we all are - was quite a renaissance man with interests in many areas. I had many memorable walks and talks with him around town on numerous subjects. Our small booklet on Fischer-Spassky was the first to print; the day after the match ended!

The course consisted of lectures by university professors in various departments and other notables relating chess to their field - Art, Mathematics, Literature, Music, etc, etc. I particularly recall Stanislaw Ulam's Chess and Mathematics.

I was Eugene's assistant, occasionally hosting the class when he was ill or traveled. I also gave the Chess and Philosophy class even though I was but an undergrad.

Eugene's wife, Nancy, always attended and taped the classes. They are a treasure-trove of chess and culture related topics. Recently Nancy donated them (and much of Eugene's writings and correspondence) to the Denver Public Library -

http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegri...

Nancy let me keep about 10 boxes of Eugene's material while she moved circa 1998 as well as his chess book and chess sets. I looked it over some; he had correspondence going with quite a few movers-and-shakers.

I sold the last copies I had on eBay about 10 years ago tho I kept two originals so could reprint sometime for nostalgia's sake. Eugene and I each made $75 on the book - even tho it sold close to 1000 copies...story on that, also.