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PROVO, Utah (AP) -- Brigham Young University political science professor R.J. Snow has died in an auto accident, just months before his planned retirement.
Snow, 69, died Tuesday evening when his Jeep Cherokee hit a utility pole in Provo.
Police Capt. Rick Healey said, "We're checking to see if there was some medical reason why he lost control of the vehicle."
Snow was a former director of the Robert H. Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, and at the time of his death was a member of the Dixie State College Board of Trustees.
"Three Utah institutions of higher learning are mourning a great leader today," BYU President Cecil O. Samuelson said Wednesday. "R.J. changed the lives of generations of students, both in the classroom and through his thoughtful decisions as an administrator."
Snow was scheduled to teach his final course this summer term before retiring.
David Magleby, dean of BYU's College of Family, Home and Social Sciences and former chairman of the Department of Political Science, said "R.J. was an extraordinary academic leader who helped build multiple universities. He was also a committed teacher, personally very warm and generous. All of us call him a model colleague."
University of Utah President Michael Young said, "His legacy is deep and pervasive. He will forever be remembered as an extraordinary man of this university."
J.D. Williams, founding director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics, said Snow strengthened the institute while overseeing "an unbelievable array of major university offices."
"I so admired him as a student, treasured him as a colleague and stood in awe of his qualities as a husband to Marilyn and father to four magnificent children," Williams said. "If one wants to know why teaching has been a great career, it's because I knew R.J. Snow. I could not have asked for better."
Utah Democratic Chairman Wayne Holland said Snow "had the unique ability to make contact and have a positive effect on the lives of his students, his missionaries and his colleagues. He had an indefinable quality that encouraged both friend and acquaintances to higher and higher levels of achievement."
From 1987 to 1990, Snow served as president of the South Africa Johannesburg Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From 2001 to 2002, he was the director of public affairs and manager of Nauvoo Restoration Inc.
Snow was survived by his wife, four children and five grandchildren. A memorial service will be held Monday in Provo. The location and time have not been determined.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
