Richard Curlee

Richard "Dick" Curlee passed away January 29, 2008 in Tucson, Arizona. He was an emeritas professor at the University of Arizona, joining the university; Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences in 1975. He was a professor, teaching graduate courses on stuttering, counseling and research design, as well as an introductory undergraduate course, and was head of the department. Curlee was a graduate of Wake Forest College and earned his master's and Ph.D. in communicative disorders from the University of Southern California. He was an author or co-author of numerous articles and chapters, editor of on text and co-editor of another on stuttering, its assessment and treatment, an editor of Seminars in Speech and Language , an associate editor of the Journal of Fluency Disorders, and a frequent reviewer for the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research. He was a certified speech-language pathologist, a Fellow of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association, and an active member of the Tucson National Stuttering Association chapter. In 1999 he wrote an interesting paper for the International Stuttering Awareness Day Online Conference, "Early Intervention with Childhood Stuttering Revisited" (www.mnsu.edu/comdis/isad2/papers/curlee.html). In 2002, Dick Curlee was awarded the Malcolm Fraser Award from the Stuttering Foundation for "his life's work as clinician, researcher, educator, editor, author, advocate, and mentor."

In Memoriam: Richard Curlee from The ASHA LEADER, submitted by JoAnn Yates, professor emeritus of California State University, Long Beach. Yates wrote this celebratory obituary for the March 2, 2008 ceremony of the Tucson Women's Club.

The following tributes from several of his colleague and friends exemplify the impact he had on everyone. Additional tributes may be sent to Judy Kuster

Kenneth St. Louis

Mike Retzinger

Nan Bernstein Ratner

Barry.Guitar

E. Charles Healey

Janis C. Ingham

Deborah Kully

Walt Manning

Luc De Nil


added February 4, 2008
last modified November 23, 2011