For Anthony Rocchio, human encounters and connections were more than an opportunity to forge new friendships. They were a cause for celebration. Rocchio’s natural gift for engaging others and wanting to learn about them brought him his greatest joy in life, says his family.

“He celebrated other people and their lives,” said his oldest daughter, Anne Rocchio-Dodge, a teacher in New Boston, N.H. “When he said students’ names, professors’ names, names of anyone he met, in any experience in life, he said their names with such reverence. They were phenomenal people in his eyes.”