William Cyrus Reed, III ”Cy” died in Cassopolis, Mich. on July 19, 2012.
He was born on Oct. 16, 1955 in Bloomington to William C. Reed, Jr. and Martha Heseman Reed Bollenbacher, they survive. Dr. Reed is also survived by his stepfather, John C. Bollenbacher, Cy’s wife Carol King-Reed and their son, William Christopher Reed.
Cy graduated from Bloomington High School South in 1973, and the University of Notre Dame in 1977, where he studied abroad at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Cy earned a Ph.D. in political science, with an area of focus in African Studies from Indiana University in 1989.
As a professor of political science, Cy taught at Simpson College, Wabash College, the American University of Cairo, Egypt and the American University of Bulgaria, where he was serving as provost.
Cy traveled the world as easily as his neighborhood. The first of his many trips to Africa was with Crossroads Africa, with whom he helped build a school in Ada, Ghana in the mid-1970s. He traveled to visit family in Senegal and Rwanda, and accompanied a friend to interview journalists in Tunisia and Nigeria, hitchhiking across the Sahara to do so in 1979. Cy was a Rotary Fellow in Cologne, Germany in 1978, and spent the following summer in South Africa working in a gold mine.
Cy began his international research as a Fulbright Scholar in Zimbabwe in 1983. He subsequently did research in South Africa, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria.
From 2000-02, Cy served as director of international trade for the State of Indiana, for which he traveled to China, Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and the Middle East.
Cy was a teacher: at camp, as a father and as a professor. He was fearless in the classroom, whether the classroom platform was the horseback riding program for campers at Camp Eberhart, or teaching the joy of self-reliance to Christopher at their cottage on Diamond Lake in Michigan, a lake he had been visiting since his childhood and which he considered home. In Cy’s eyes, no subject was too difficult and no student was incapable.
Cy served on the board of directors at Camp Eberhart in Three Rivers, Mich. He was also an active member of the Episcopal Church both in the United States and abroad. During the 1990s, he served as senior arden of the Vestry of St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church Maadi, Cairo, Egypt.
Cy is survived by his parents, wife and son, sister Paula Reed (Margaret Pollack) Lynch of Arlington, VA.; The Rev. C. Davies (Carol) Reed of Indianapolis; numerous nieces and nephews and cousins, Cy’s aunts and uncles include Carol and Robert Shircliff of Jacksonville, Fla.; and John and Dottie Heseman of Indianapolis.
The family requests that memorial contributions be made to Camp Eberhart, Three Rivers, Mich. or St. Francis-In-The-Fields Episcopal Church in Zionsville.
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