David Stephan, 74, of Raleigh, North Carolina, passed away at his home in the first week of April, 2021. Dave was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1946 to parents George and Sylvia Stephan. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University and a Master of Science degree from North Carolina State University.
Dave worked for over 40 years as an entomologist identifying arthropods and other specimens submitted to the Plant Disease and Insect Clinic operated by the NC State University Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology. Additionally, he was an expert herpetologist and founding member of the North Carolina Herpetological Society, where he helped establish the Aubrey Shaw Stewardship Fund and chaired the Conservation Committee from 2000 until the time of his death. He served as the co-author of dozens of articles for entomological, herpetological and agricultural publications. He was a major contributor to the documentation of the biology and distribution of amphibians and reptiles across North Carolina and beyond.
Dave collected insect specimens in and around Bladen County, NC. He contributed hundreds of specimens to the NC State Insect Collection, plus hundreds of specimens to the herpetological collection at the Museum of Natural Sciences. In 1994 Dave was the recipient of the North Carolina Entomological Society's Award for Excellence in Entomology. Two species of insect have been named after Dave: Telamona stephani, a species of treehopper, and Parvulodemus stephani, a species of millipede.
He was a volunteer at the Reid Wildflower Garden in Raleigh and at the NC Museum of Natural History. He kept an elaborate garden of native plants on his property. Dave enjoyed movies, and he loved the novels of Tolkien and Frank Herbert. He loved jokes and puns. He read the paper daily. He was a proud Democrat and proudly gay man.
At the funeral of his father, Dave expressed an appreciation for the Robert Frost poem "Birches," a poem that give us the portrait of a boy not unlike Dave: "Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, whose only play was what he found himself, summer or winter, and could play alone."
But Dave was not alone. He enjoyed the love and friendship of many. He is survived by sister Hollace Poissant and Sherrie Kubiak, nephews Jamie and Chris Poissant, niece Julianna Kubiak, stepmother Roz Rudolph, and numerous dear friends and colleagues.
A celebration of Dave's life will be held at a time to be announced. Memorial contributions may be given to the North Carolina Herpetological Society General Fund, the Carolina Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, or the Triangle Land Conservancy.
The family of David Leigh Stephan wishes to thank Jeff Beane, Matt Bertone, Alvin Braswell, Wayne Brooks, Lew Dietz, Kathleen A. Kidd, Gail Laney, Wilson Laney, Dan Lockwood, Amy McIntosh, Michael Munster, Christine Nalepa, Kenneth Sorensen, Sterling Southern, Matt Wallace, and Bobby Ward for their friendship and fond remembrances, as well as the Plant Disease and Insect Clinic at NC State, the Department of Applied Ecology at NC State, and the NC Museum of Natural Sciences for their support.
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