Dr. David Henry Payne, 61, of Watkinsville, died early in the morning of Thursday, May 26,
2011, at Athens Regional Medical Center. He passed peacefully, lying in the arms of his wife, Rhonda. Dr. Payne had suffered from Carcinoma of the Collecting Ducts of Bellini, a very rare, extremely aggressive renal cancer, a diagnosis made in late March of this year.
 

David was born in Milledgeville, GA, on May 31, 1949 to the late Harley and Ola McCurry Payne. He graduated from Baldwin High School and received his AB degree from Georgia College and University in English and Philosophy. After working as a photographer and cameraman for a Macon TV station, he spent five years as Training and Public Information Officer for Central State Hospital in Milledgeville.

While working on his Masters Degree at the University of Georgia, he also worked as an Academic Advisor for the College of Arts and Sciences and as a Teaching Assistant for the English Department. He was employed as a Conference Coordinator for the Georgia Center for five years and as an Instructor for the Evening Class Division at UGA. He received his MA in August of 1980 and completed his PhD at UGA in June 1988.

David was an Instructor in the Department of English where he taught Native American literature, American Literature (Post-Civil War), Technical Writing, and Multicultural American Literature, among other courses. He also served as the Coordinator of the Writing Center until his retirement and Director of Network Operations for the English department at UGA, and manager of the DOS, Macintosh, Unix-based computer staff as well as the fiber-optic Ciscol Foundry network. He was promoted to Senior Academic Professional in 1998 and became an adjunct Assistant Professor for Native American Studies in 2007. He wrote numerous successful grants, earned a variety of honors, had many academic publications, and he was a member of several academic professional societies.

In addition to his scholarly writing, David was also a poet and writer of short fiction. Several pieces of his work and photographs were published in various magazines. Although he had been retired for 20 months at the time of his death, David remained active in his profession. He continued working on revised editions of books for independent study courses he taught by and graded essay exams for Pearson.

A person of many interests, David played guitar, mandolin, and several other instruments. A friend of his wrote: "I can see him with his flute in hand, walking up to the microphone to improvise with the band; that quiet, serious face, with barely a hint of humor, then playing like damn Ian Anderson, rocking out to whatever we played and then, just as quietly, backing out of the spotlight as if nothing had just happened!"  In addition to his musical interests, David was a brilliant photographer, winning a number of awards for his work and honored with several one-man shows over the years. He especially loved photo-realism and spent many hours in the darkroom perfecting black and white photos in earlier days.

Since his retirement, he added to his interests by teaching himself wood working. He also served on the Democratic Committee for Oconee County. One of the greatest joys of David's life was traveling the world with his wife Rhonda. The couple visited approximately 50 countries, several of them many times.
Some of their favorites were Ireland, England, France, Greece, Poland, Germany, Austria, and China. They also saw roughly 35 of the US states. Inseparable during their marriage, they were comfortable sitting quietly in the same room reading books, discussing politics, philosophy, and feelings or sharing cooking dinner. They were partners, companions, best friends, lovers, and true soul-mates for all of their time together.
Dr. Payne is survived by his wife, Rhonda Cheryl Lea Payne and their beloved "fur-children," the Havanese dogs, Jordie, Kerry, Hank, and Cooper; Maine Coon, Fionna, and "generic cat" Allijah. He is also survived by his sister, Rebecca Lovett (Mrs. Leon), of Wrightsville; niece Lara (Mrs. Stephen) Wakely, of Atlanta; nephew Ralph Lovett, of Washington, D.C.; Melisa Lea Shuck (Mrs. James), of Seattle; Tammy Lea, of Lilburn; and several great-nephews and a great-niece.

At his request, Dr. Payne was cremated and a memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. July 17 at the day chapel at Athens Botanical Gardens. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, 5001 Angel Canyon Rd, Kanab, Utah 84741; your local humane society, or the Association for Cancer Online Resources (ACOR.org). Lord & Stephens - West in charge of arrangements.