Ronald Stewart Patrick

December 22, 1960 – December 6, 2024

Ronald Stewart Patrick of Asheville, North Carolina, left his bodily form on December 6, 2024, at the age of 63, just weeks shy of his 64th birthday. Still, his spirit is carried on by all who loved him. Ron died peacefully after an eight-year battle with metastatic prostate cancer, surrounded by family and friends following a short stay in hospice in Hendersonville, North Carolina. A celebration of his life was held March 29, 2025, at Circa 29 in Asheville.

Ron was creative, artistic, adventurous, spontaneous, mischievous, immensely loving, and almost always ready for whatever came next. Music was woven through his entire life, as essential to him as friendship and family. He didn’t just listen to music; he made it. Ron wrote songs, sang with a warm, expressive voice, played guitar, and spent much of his life performing with friends and bands. Music was one of the ways he communicated best.

He was also a storyteller, stargazer, devoted husband and father, loyal friend, and loving younger brother to Rick, whom Ron adored and looked up to throughout his life. Though different in temperament, the brothers shared a deep bond. Ron loved deeply, laughed easily, made friends for life, and possessed an enduring sense that something special might be just around the corner. And Ron could talk. A simple observation could become a story, a story could become a conversation, and a conversation with Ron could happily wander just about anywhere.

Ron was born December 22, 1960, to Charles “Cal” Patrick and Norma “Peggy” Dean Patrick in Wichita Falls, Texas, where his father was stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base. His brother, Rick, seven years his senior, found himself with a busy little brother to entertain and, occasionally, endure. The family later lived in Germany before settling in Virginia, where Ron graduated from Yorktown High School in 1979.

Inspired by artists including the Eagles, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, Ron began singing and playing guitar in middle school and later formed the band Backseat with close high school friends Gary Jones and David Grantham. He was never one to miss—or throw—a good party and made friends who remained close for decades.

After deciding college wasn’t immediately for him, Ron signed on to a scallop boat called Carolina Baby in the North Atlantic, an adventure that inspired him to write a song of the same name. Disappointed by his earnings and grateful, as he later told it, that he hadn’t been stabbed in his sleep by one of his ex-con shipmates, he hitchhiked home from Newport, Rhode Island. He later attended Christopher Newport University in Virginia, where he made more lifelong friends, played music, threw parties and, presumably, took classes.

In the 1980s, Ron and Gary headed to Washington, D.C., intending to get their big break. They lived in Rick’s basement and, with his help, landed a gig at Ramparts Tavern & Grill in Alexandria. When the owner skeptically asked Rick whether his little brother’s band was any good, Rick replied, “Yeah, they’re good.” They were, and Backseat became Ramparts’ house band.

Eventually, a job with Ferguson Enterprises brought Ron to Denver, Colorado, which would become his home for roughly three decades. Ron married Grace Cahill in 1998, and in 2000 their daughter, Hannah Marie Patrick, was born.

Hannah was the apple of her father’s eye, and being her dad was one of the great joys of Ron’s life. He adored her and was enormously proud of the woman she became. So much of Ron lives on in Hannah—her open heart, her love of music, and that same creative, all-in embrace of life.

Ron spent much of his professional career in technology sales while continuing to gig in the evenings. He later formed Sol Gypsy, a world-music-inspired, percussive rock band reflecting his wide-ranging musical tastes and creativity.

In 2007, Ron met Robin Bond, who was working at a Denver-area television station. Robin had two daughters, Taryn and Carly. Ron and Robin dated for seven years before marrying on a South Carolina beach in 2014. Together with their ex-spouses, they raised three “stair-step” girls —Taryn, Hannah and Carly—each just a year apart in age. Blending their families became one of Ron and Robin’s greatest adventures.

Family life included countless weekends in the Colorado mountains and spontaneous adventures farther afield. Shortly before Christmas in 2015, for example, Ron and Robin piled the girls into a minivan and drove to Tempe, Arizona, to see the band The 1975 in concert. It was quintessential Ron: music, family, a road trip and a reason to go somewhere.

For years, Ron also worked alongside Robin at her production company, Robin Bond Media, in business development, location scouting and production. Their work took them across the country and beyond for clients including the U.S. Navy and U.S. Olympic Committee, turning work trips into adventures and creating lasting friendships along the way. Ron was instrumental in raising funds for international distribution of the documentary Derby, Baby! through a record breaking Kickstarter campaign. He brought his creativity and musical instincts to every project, with a gift for creating the perfect soundtrack.

In February 2017, at age 56, Ron was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer. What followed was an eight-year journey through treatments, setbacks and adaptations. Somehow, Ron remained Ron.

In 2020, after Carly left for college, Ron and Robin moved to Asheville, North Carolina, to be closer to Robin’s aging parents. Against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains, they found a beautiful final chapter together—immersing themselves in family, music and friendships that grew deep, while continuing to seek adventure wherever they could find it. They knew their time was precious and filled Ron’s final years not simply with the work of fighting cancer, but with love, laughter, music and life.

Ron was also a lifelong stargazer fascinated by space exploration, an interest inspired largely by his mother, Peggy, who worked as a contract administrator on the Viking 1 and Viking 2 Mars missions. He liked to say his mother was the original Mary Tyler Moore. Years later, the family was enormously proud when Norma “Peggy” Dean Patrick’s signature was included on a microchip sent to Mars—giving Ron one more reason to look toward the night sky.

Ron looked for the bright side and remained endlessly curious about what might come next. He drank coffee at night, loathed small spaces and perpetually smashed the toes of his size-13 feet into furniture. He loved underdog movies, especially Rudy and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, though Forrest Gump was his all-time favorite. He was a nighttime eater, an enthusiastic napper and forever perplexed by his wife’s love of early mornings.

Through years of cancer treatment, Ron continued to embrace whatever adventures his body allowed. He hit golf balls in the mountains of Western North Carolina, rode his ATV, listened to music, loved his people and kept finding reasons to enjoy the day in front of him.

Ron was humble and spontaneous, a gentleman and a charmer, a compassionate listener, and simply fun to be around. He never pretended to know something he didn’t. But even “I don’t know” received the full Ron treatment. With his trademark verbosity, he would instead say, “There’s so much I don’t know about that right now.”

And sometimes, after experience had supplied the answer, he would reflect with his Southern charm:

“Now there’s knowing.”

Ron leaves behind not only the people who loved him, but songs, stories, inside jokes, road trips, friendships, films, adventures and memories that continue to carry him forward.

Ron was preceded in death by his mother, Norma “Peggy” Patrick, and father, Charles “Cal” Patrick. He is survived by his wife, Robin Bond; daughter, Hannah Patrick; stepdaughters, Taryn and Carly Bond; brother, Richard Lee “Rick” Patrick; sister-in-law, Dianne Patrick; niece, Alexandra Patrick; and nephew, Maxwell Patrick.

He also leaves behind Stella, his Golden Doodle, who misses him very much but seems to have inherited his enthusiasm for life and adventure.

And, like Ron, she loves music.