Robert Powell, 69, GCC professor

Once a week for more than a decade, Robert L. Powell Jr. went to art classes at the Haddonfield Adult School.

And until the last few weeks of this spring semester, he took classes in watercolor painting with Gwynn Walker Di Pilla.

"A lot of his pictures were for his children and his grandchildren," Di Pilla said, including his final work, an incomplete still life of flowers for the youngest, 6-month-old Emily Ford.

"I will finish it up for him," she said.

Painting was a refuge from Parkinson's disease, she said, because "when he painted, he did not shake at all."

On Friday, June 19, Mr. Powell, 69, of Haddon Heights, who retired three years ago as a professor of business studies at what is now Rowan College at Gloucester County, died of complications of Parkinson's disease at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in Camden.

"He was the last of the founding faculty at Gloucester County College to still be there," said David Cosky, who had known him since 1958 and who retired from the college as an assistant professor of management in 2005.

Because he was the college's "senior professor for a good number of years," Cosky said, "he used to carry the mace and lead the procession at graduations."

Mr. Powell began teaching there, Cosky recalled, "in 1969, recruited me to come in 1970, was chairman of the division of business studies in the mid-1970s." But he returned to teaching, Cosky said, and completed his doctorate.

Born in Camden, Mr. Powell graduated from Haddon Heights High School in 1963, and earned a bachelor's degree in 1967 and a master's in 1979, both in business and both at what is now the University of Central Missouri.

He earned his doctorate in education at Temple University in 1980 while teaching at GCC.

"Every night after dinner," his wife, Trish, said, "he would go down to the basement with his aluminum table and work, work, work."

Even when he was chairman of his division, she said, "he continued to teach one class."

"His true love," she said, "was being in the classroom with the students."

A former member of the Haddon Heights Board of Education, he was a coach of soccer and softball teams for the Haddon Heights Youth Association in the 1980s, she said.

From age 10 until he was 17, he was a drummer with the Haddon Heights Vagabonds Drum and Bugle Corps.

"We met when we were 14," his wife said. "I was in a drum and bugle corps - the Belles of St. Mary's from Gloucester City. I was in the color guard."

They met at a musical competition in Coatesville, had their first date at Atco Lake, and married in 1970.

Besides his wife, Mr. Powell is survived by son Andy, daughter Becky Ford, a sister, and four grandchildren.

A visitation was set from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 23, and 9 to 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, June 24, at the Foster-Warne Funeral Home, 250 White Horse Pike, Audubon, before an 11 a.m. Funeral Mass at St. Rose of Lima Church, Fourth Avenue and Kings Highway, Haddon Heights, with interment in New St. Mary's Cemetery, Bellmawr.

Donations may be sent to the Robert L. Powell Jr. Art Education Fund, Citizens Bank, 131 S. White Horse Pike, Haddon Heights, N.J. 08035.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.fosterwarnefuneralhome.com.

610-313-8134@WNaedele