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July 11, 2011 - e-Mail From Margo (Feinstein) Connolly:
I googled Steve Parry when I saw that he was on the missing classmate list. I was deeply saddened to read in this article that he was deceased. I have been out of touch with him for decades, and I do not know any more than what is stated in the article. He was a great guy.
The following article was taken from the Occidental College web site.
Appreciation
Getting There Was Half the Fun
 As a child in Pasadena, Stephen T. Parry '72 began collecting Dinky Toy transit buses and set up stations on the floors all over his house. This fascination did not end with childhood for Parry, who died Nov. 29, 2009, in Santa Barbara. When he went to Occidental, he designed the College's two-line Bengal Bus system, still operating today. The VW buses were free to Oxy students and "made weekly runs to UCLA and USC libraries, and regular Friday runs to Pasadena for shopping and Hollywood and the Sunset Strip for entertainment," as a Nov. 18, 1970, article in the Pasadena Star-News noted. "Parry hopes to go into transportation planning as a career."
During his 23-year career at the Rapid Transit District (now the Metropolitan Trans portation Authority) in Los Angeles, Parry, as director of schedules and operations planning, designed the bus routes for the entire Los Angeles County area, accommodating 1 million passengers daily. His department was responsible for coordinating transportation plans for all major events including shuttle buses to all UCLA home games at the Rose Bowl, NFL Super Bowls, the pastoral visit of Pope John Paul II, and crisis mode plans during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Among his proudest accomplishments was his plan for bus service for the 1984 Olympics.
After graduating from Oxy with a B.A. in English, Parry took a job as a transportation planner with what was then the RTD in Los Angeles. In 1973, he used his Thomas Watson Fellowship to study transportation systems around the world. While at RTD, he received a master's in public administration from Pepperdine University. Throughout his career, he served on numerous American Public Transit Committees.
In 1995, he and his wife, Jean Keefe '70, moved to the Bay Area, where Parry served as director of service development at AC Transit in Oakland for five years. In 2001, they relocated to Santa Barbara, where he was employed with CHK America, a British-owned provider of nationwide passenger transit information. He volunteered for the Pearl Chase Society, another architectural preservation organization, adding shuttle bus routes and "tinkling the ivories" for its home tours.
Parry served as student body president as a senior at Oxy. His longtime involvement with the College included serving on interview panels for future Thomas J. Watson Fellows, fundraising, and planning class reunions. And as a testament to his legacy, there are 15 Bengal Buses running today.
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Judy Cox (Gottfeld)
I am very sorry to hear that Stephen has passed away. We went to elementary school together, and his humble, funny personality will be missed. I had known that he had gone into transportation, but not that he had at one time been here in the bay area- an opportunity missed to reconnect. RIP, Steve.
Jean Dubinsky (Gasca)
I remember from when I knew him at school that Steve knew all the bus schedules in Pasadena by heart. How appropriate that he went into transportation planning and, from reading the article, was so successful in his career. RIP, Stephen.
Daniel Joseph
Always sad to hear of a passing and yes, I too remember Steve’s knowledge and almost obsession with all the bus lines, timings, etc. I gather it fostered a great career. If I recall Steve was a hemophiliac and there were several times in HS he had to stay out a bit. Having learned I have a different form later in life it just comes to mind.
Jan Sullivan (McEachern)
Stephen was a dear soul, and my prom date in our senior year. We had the most fun that evening. I remember his mother crying as we took pictures on Prom Night as she was so thankful he made it that far. I visited him at Oxy from UCLA our freshman year and wish I had kept in touch better. So happy he lived such a full life, but wish he could have shared his many talents with the world longer.
Jan Sullivan McEachern
Stephen Lantz
I sat beside Steve in the PHS orchestra, He excelled the bassoon and I played at the contrabass clarinet. I remember that he studied bus schedules during the long tacit periods of the pieces and loved to be challenged to identify the route, service frequency and bus line number of any RTD route. He also would provide an oral itinerary for any trip, including scheduled trip time and approximate transfer wait times if more than one bus was needed to complete the trip. When he first applied to work at RTD in their scheduling department he was told that schedulers were promoted into the department after a career as a bus driver since it took a lifetime to memorize the routes and schedules of the vast RTD system. Being Steve, he insisted they give him a test to see if he knew the system. Of course he aced the test and was the first employee of the scheduling department to never have driven a bus.
Since I have also had a career in public transportation, our paths crossed over the years and I always enjoyed his ascerbic humor and casual brilliance especially when he talked about his passion for re-designing entire bus networks, schedules across the world. Geeks rule!
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Barbara Kaplan (Kraemer)
I didn't know Steve well but remember his intelligence and special humor from sharing classes with him. I do remember that Mr Stewart, our English teacher for 2 years, used to tease him a little I think or was sometimes harsh with him as he could be, and later said that he regretted it , that he didn't know what Steve was having to cope with - how heroic he really was. Also so glad to hear that he had such a full life though so sorry it couldn't have been a longer one.
Nancy Green (Harper)
I loved Steve Parry so much.I got to know him very well in yearbook class. I was always amazed that he could recite all the bus schedules in what seemed the whole Los Angeles area. My father worked in downtown LA and I lived in Sierra Madre. He was able (off the top of his head) to tell me the best way to get to his office. When I read that he put this knowledge to work as a successful career, it was just too perfect. As we get older, there seems to be fewer and fewer people you remember well from high school. Steve is one of those people for me. I decided to post this picture of Steve, Liz Smith and me working on the yearbook. Wonderful memories! Sorry about the red blotch in the corner..jpg)