The school was informed by Paul’s wife Yoka Drion that he had died on 14 February 2014. Paul’s brother Bill sent us the following information.
We lived in England from August of 1961 until August of 1962. My father was on sabbatical for the year from his teaching position at Stanford and continued his research for the academic year at Oxford. Our stay was truly the most memorable and enjoyable year we ever had together as a family. Paul was 16, I was 13 and my sister Lynn was 8.
It was the year that our August 1961 drive to ‘West Berlin’ was cancelled due to the building of the Berlin Wall. The first satellite broadcast of 17 minutes was beamed live from the US via TelStar. We all were so proud of our young president John F. Kennedy.
Paul went on to Stanford University and graduated with a degree in Social Sciences. He was always the tinkerer… the fixer-upper…the analytical one… and he loved cars. For most of his adult life he was a car mechanic and shop supervisor, and a really good one. He was active in multiple community and educational projects and other youth group activities. He was an accomplished musician and artist.
At MCS he played on the ‘lightweight’ rugby team and studied very hard in his classes. He enjoyed his friends there at MCS. I did find his blazer from MCS. He had discreetly put a CND pin (peace symbol) inside the lapel on the left [Bill kindly donated the blazer to our archives].
Sadly, he died this year after a brief battle with brain cancer. It was just before he was to retire from his longstanding job. He is survived by his wife Yoka Drion and son Alexander Thomas Gonda.