David Savidge

David Holt Savidge, affectionately known as both Dave and David to his friends and family, passed away on August 17, 2024, in Boulder, Colorado. Born on January 12, 1967 in Princeton, New Jersey, to Margaret Ellen MacKenzie and Vincent John Savidge, David was known for his kind and generous spirit, his deep love for his family, and his diverse and varied passions and interests. David was the quintessential polymath, constantly exploring and working on his intellectual, artistic, physical, and spiritual growth.

David was active in theater, choir, and band at Southern Lehigh High School in Pennsylvania, and a proud graduate of the Class of 1984. He pursued his passion for acting and singing and graduated with a Drama degree from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1989. Some of David's proudest artistic moments included working at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton and with the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, as well as acting in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and other local theater productions.

With his deep intellectual curiosity and commitment to social and economic justice and human rights, David decided to go to law school. He attended the City University of New York School of Law, a premier public interest law school, where he met the love of his life, Jenny Chung. They graduated in 1999 together, became lawyers together, and have never been apart since.

David and Jenny (who he always called Jen) married in 2001 in Southern California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean that he loved so much. Together they built a family and a home filled with laughter, music, literature, and art. Their union was blessed with two daughters, Olivia and Julia, who continue David's legacy of humor, song, and theater. Singing was part of the air they breathed. David was a devoted husband and, most importantly, an affectionate father who always expressed his love, never missing a chance to say how much he loved them and was proud of them.

David was beloved for many things, including his creative gifts of original poems, his intuitive cooking skills, his hilarious mock lyrics, his mastery of accents and languages, his passion for both legal and theological scholarship, his love of Shakespeare, astronomy, physics, travel, history, and the ocean, and his ability to read at least 10 books at the same time. David was an innate teacher who made an impact on everyone he met. He taught his wife Jen to scuba dive, snorkel, fish, and birdwatch. He taught his daughters Olivia and Julia to ride bikes, ski, act, sing, and play chess and D&D. David encouraged everyone he met to be kind, to slow down, and to always lend a helping hand to those in need.

Professionally, David pursued his diverse intellectual interests and practiced public interest law, and then admiralty and maritime law after getting his LLM from Tulane Law School. David was also a teacher, most recently teaching business ethics and legal studies at the University of Denver. David always looked for ways to teach his students to think bigger and deeper and to contribute to a better world. His students described him perfectly as enthusiastic, genuine, passionate, smart, insightful, funny, and caring.

David's greatest role however was husband and father, and his most cherished and joyous moments in life were with his wife Jen and his two beautiful daughters Olivia and Julia. David is the love of Jen's life and her soulmate and best friend. David was a dedicated and passionate genealogical researcher, and he and Jen had planned a life of world travel to places where their ancestors lived. He was an adoring father who sang lullabies to Olivia and Julia, gave them piggy back rides everywhere they traveled, and taught them to be courageous in the ocean by learning to surf right alongside them.

David's memory is honored and kept alive by his loving wife, Jen, his daughters Olivia (age 20) and Julia (age 18), his faithful dog Mac, his sweet cats Minnie, Harry, and Crookshanks, his older brother John Savidge, an extended family from coast to coast, and many dear friends, students, and colleagues.

A Mass of Christian burial will be held on August 30, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, located at 808 14th Street, in Boulder, Colorado. The burial will take place at Mountain View Memorial Park, with a reception to follow to celebrate David's life.

David's warmth, empathy, compassion, and the joy he brought to every gathering and situation will be deeply missed by all who had the pleasure of knowing him. In lieu of flowers or gifts, please consider making a donation to charities that Olivia and Julia picked to honor their Dad's love of astronomy, marine animals, and Hawai'i: Reach For The Stars (https://www.rftstars.com/) and Hawai'i Marine Animal Response (https://h-mar.org/)