Bruce Torrans Royal passed away February 28, 2017 after a long battle with cancer. Bruce was a dedicated attorney, an outdoorsman, a community activist, and a loving father. A 1967 graduate of William Tennent High School, Warminster, Pennsylvania, he continued his education at Penn State University in State College and was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. He achieved his Juris Doctor from Wake Forest School of Law in Winston Salem, North Carolina and earned a Master of Laws, Taxation from Georgetown University in Washington DC. Prior to attending law school, Bruce worked briefly as an auditor for the Department of Treasury and later earned his CPA.
Bruce’s career as a lawyer spanned three decades and included several noteworthy achievements. In the 1980s he worked as an international tax attorney for Marriott and negotiated their expansion of hotels into the Middle East. He later started his own practice, specializing in contracts and tax law, in Montgomery County PA, where he worked for the remainder of his career. Bruce was a well respected member of the Montgomery County Bar, according to other attorneys he worked with. Former students of Bucks County and Montgomery County Community Colleges may remember Bruce as an Adjunct Professor of Business Administration; he taught intermittently starting in the early 2000s.
A life-long passion for adventure and the outdoors emerged early in Bruce’s life as he earned the status of Eagle Scout as a teenager and in the early 1970s became a central member of the Jericho Mountain Gang – a youth group who performed staged train robberies on the New Hope-Ivyland Railroad. This passion was later served by periodic camping trips with his three sons, Matthew, Brendan and Andrew, and international travels that brought him to Canada, Europe and China.
Despite being a person of great ambition, Bruce was regarded by many who knew him as a jovial and unassuming man. He derived immense joy from spending time with his children, taking on roles such as Cub Scout troop leader, little league coach and builder of Pinewood Derby cars. Bruce was also an avid sports fan, closely following the Eagles, Phillies and Nittany Lions. As a young man, he played rugby and ran an intramural soccer league in Winston Salem, where he met the mother of his children, Jo White.
Bruce was the son of Ranby Royal Jr., (deceased) formerly of Salemburg, NC., and Vivian Stirzel Royal, formerly of Philadelphia and Ivyland, Pennsylvania but long time resident of the Johnsville area of Warminster Township. Ranby served 21 years in the United States Navy entering the service in 1939 and earned Chief during WWII. Ranby Royal Jr. was at Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. Bruce traveled internationally with his mother, Vivian, during the service deployments of Ranby.
Bruce is survived by his mother, Vivian S. Royal, sisters Jane Royal and Betsy Royal, sons Matthew, Andrew and Brendan and grandson Liam. A memorial service will be held at Wm. Rowen Grant Funeral Home in Southampton, PA, 659 Street Road, Monday March 6, 2017 at 9:00 am, followed by internment at Union Cemetery, Richboro PA. The family requests any donations to be sent to Bladder Cancer Research Fund, Penn Medicine Development, 3535 Market Street, Suite 750, Philadelphia, PA in lieu of flowers.
SHARE OBITUARY
v.1.8.18