Richard E. Toth

Diana, We are saddened to hear of the loss of your husband. It is truly a difficult time and our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

Diana and family - All of us at Canyonlands Field Institute extend our heartfelt sympathies at this difficult time. Dick supported our environmental education mission through planning, mentorship and major donor. He served on our Board of Trustees in our early years and kept up with us since to support connecting kids with nature. I always appreciated the notes and visits from both of you. I am not able to attend the services but will honor his life on a little walk today in the desert. In sympathy, Karla VanderZanden, CFI Co Founder and Executive Director.

I am very sorry for your loss and I will truly miss him. I knew Dick as a graduate student then later as a professional colleague...but I am pretty sure I wouldn't have had the career I had or the success if I hadn't met him 40 years ago. I still find myself defining planning and landscape architecture in terms that I had once learned from Professor Toth. He challenged me in many ways, and sometimes it felt itchy, but undoubtedly it was my own good fortune to cross paths with this man. His life and his legacy as a professor, and a damn solid human being, lives on in everyone he mentored. He convinced us to think bigger than we were and to believe it. Thanks to you Diane, and your family, for sharing him with us.

I was privileged to be an undergraduate LAEP student when Professor Toth came to USU. He was instrumental in introducing me to computer programming and helped create the bridge to my career success. If he had not been at USU, I would not have considered applying to the Graduate School of Design at Harvard (I didn't even know where it was, although I knew of it's reputation). Having him as a professor helped me have the confidence and courage to expand my horizons, and by doing that, he empowered my siblings and others that my life has touched too. That's what a great teacher does. Without him, I would not have had the experiences, life, and career I have enjoyed. My condolences on his passing.

Hello Toth Family. I'm sorry to hear of your father/husband's death. Your dad was such a cool guy in our Logan, UT neighborhood. He was always kind—as was Mrs. Toth (Diana)—to me as a young kid-teen. Erica, I remember fondly one time when you and I visited your dad at work (USU). He walked us around his department a bit and showed us some interesting design work his students did as an assignment. Love & hugs to all, Angela Thomson-Brenchley

Diana and Family, Please accept my wife Jan's and my sincerest condolences on Dick's passing. I will always treasure the opportunity I had to work with Dick at USU and looked up to him as an outstanding scholar and mentor.

I was sorry to learn about the passing of Professor Toth. I also started my career on the faculty (sociology) at USU in 1973 but retired two years before Professor Toth. He was highly respected by faculty in University's many disciplines. Over our years I constantly heard students rave about him as a teacher. He was an outstanding teacher, administrator and colleague.

My wife Laura and I were sorry and shocked to hear of Richard's passing, and our sincere condolences go out to you Diana, and your family. I first met Richard when he came out to the Landscape Architecture Department in 1972 as a visiting lecturer. He had all the very impressive cool of an East Coast Harvard professor, but was also completely approachable and I found quickly, also very funny. He then returned to join the faculty in 1973, my Senior year. Although a no- nonsense educator and stern taskmaster, he helped me with great patience (I passed!), stumble through regional design using the brand new and daunting(to me) computer "punchcards." I firmly believe he was very instrumental in some of my classmates phenomenal success out in the professional world. Sharp as tack, he epitomized to me, East Coast professional sophistication and Western cool competence--a planner's planner. Not only was he a brilliant professor, but as I increasingly discovered he was also brilliant designer in his own right--a designer's designer. He helped me understand so much about "planning" and how it was inseparable from classic Landscape Architecture as a practice and profession. His work on the Brandywine study (that '72 lecture!) still comes into my mind after all of these years--"the concept of preserving view corridors!" Years after graduation, I would run into him different places in Logan and he would always give me that amused, mirthful smile and would ask what I had been doing and then would always take time to talk. At one of these impromptu meetings years ago, he told me once about a hawk that had been severely wounded and lived by the compost pile and slowly but surely got nursed to health by you Diana, tears welling up in his eyes, I think from his profound respect for you. Most recently, when I was dealing with a vexing local City Council and planning problem, he took time to meet with me numerous times to council me on various strategies (still the professor!). He was a very early inspiration in my professional life and I have always felt very proud and lucky to know a designer of his stature and to know him also as a kind,compassionate friend. I'm so very sorry for your loss and that he's gone, but man, what an individual...what a marvel he was.

Thinking of you during this difficult time Diana & family. Our thoughts are with you. Love to all Dickie, Deb, Jen,

I am sorry to hear of your loss. I think of you and Gracie when I see a therapy dog. Cora loved the time she spent seeing people.with the therapy dogs.