Dr. Royce Etienne Joyner
September 14, 1952 - January 13, 2020
Royce E. Joyner was born on September 14, 1952, in LaGrange, North Carolina to the late James E. Joyner and Meta Mewborn-Joyner. He received his medical degree from Vanderbilt University in 1979 and completed his Pathology Fellowship Program at Yale University in 1984. Dr. Joyner moved to Little Rock, Arkansas where he taught at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. In 1988, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he began his practice with Duckworth Pathology Group as Chief Medical Director of LeBonheur Children’s Hospital. He practiced medicine for over 37 years and retired in 2017.
On October 6, 1979, he married Sirella Y. Parker and to this union one son was born, Royce Etienne Parker Joyner.
Royce Joyner had a passion for music in style and medium. He loved it. Not only was he a collector of Jazz, he was an audiophile who enjoyed the equipment that reproduced the sound as much as the sound itself. He loved sports cars. He loved exercise through long held passions of basketball, squash, and racquetball. He especially loved teaching the staff and residents at LeBonheur Children’s Laboratory, using his dreaded “red pen” for revisions of grammar and syntax, a gleaming trait left by his educator mother Meta. He was known for his quick wit, his infectious smile, and his kind and compassionate spirit. He was also loved for these things. He was well respected and loved by those who worked with him. In addition to all of this love, those in his family saw him as defining figure that anchored their world, teaching by example to the best of his abilities.
