Terry P. Roof

Terry P. Roof died on Friday morning, April 13, 2018 after a long, 17-year on and off battle with breast cancer. Having lived in Santa Barbara since 1989, she was a school teacher and taught in a variety of settings and types of institutions, and was known for introducing new and creative ways of teaching. Her first job here was with the Santa Barbara Council on Alcohol and Drug Addiction where she designed a puppet show for first-graders in the county schools addressing issues of addiction. Then she taught in a court-ordered school in Santa Barbara helping students to complete their equivalency of a high school degree. Next, she was invited by the SB Police Department to join officers in visiting street corners and other locations where gang conflicts often occurred, and later assisted that department in preparing a report on “Gangs in Santa Barbara” She insisted that more had to be done to understand why Santa Barbara had such conflicts and that we should quit blaming our proximity to Los Angeles as the problem. For many years, she taught writing composition at Santa Barbara City College.

Terry grew up in the small town of Cowpens, South Carolina, and attended nearby Limestone College. She subsequently earned a BA and MA in Education at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst where her husband, Wade Clark Roof, was a professor prior to their relocation to Santa Barbara and his joining the Religious Studies faculty at UCSB. She loved to host faculty and student gatherings in her home; graduate students and Capps Center interns especially remember many such occasions including the southern dishes she prepared. Terry was beloved by many of her students from across the country, from Amherst to Santa Barbara, whom she mentored and saw great potential. She reveled in the fact that one of her former students from Amherst included her third-grade school assessment of him in his application for admission to the US Naval Academy and was admitted.

Aside from being a devoted wife, she was the mother of two daughters, Jennifer Guilford (deceased) and Katherine Brandts, and a loving grandmother of six grandchildren, Lindsay Brandts, Maddy Brandts, Matt Brandts, Lauren Guilford, Rachel Guildford, and Emma Guilford.

In lieu of flowers, the family encourages memorial gifts to the Ridley-Tree Cancer Center affiliated with Sansum Clinic or to Visiting Nurse and Hospice Care.

A Celebration and Thanksgiving of her Life will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church (1500 State Street) on Sunday, April 22, at 3 PM.