POCATELLO — William “Bill” McCurdy, a well-known Idaho State University philosophy professor who was seldom seen without a book in hand and a fedora on his head, died of COVID-19 complications on Monday, his 74th birthday.

After he was admitted to Portneuf Medical Center on Sept. 28 with COVID-19, McCurdy was placed on a ventilator Monday afternoon, says his brother Steve McCurdy of Utah. Steve said Bill experienced several heart attacks Monday evening which resulted in damage to his internal organs preventing any further resuscitation efforts. Steve did not feel comfortable sharing Bill’s vaccination status.

In addition to dying on his 74th birthday, Bill’s passing occurred at a time when Idaho leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths per capita over the last seven days with 1.83 deaths per 100,000 state residents, according to data from The New York Times. The Gem State is also tied with Wyoming for the second-worst rate in the U.S. of fully vaccinated residents with just 42 percent of Idahoans having been completely inoculated against the virus, according to The Times.

Born and raised in Pocatello, Bill attended Pocatello High School for one year but transferred to Highland High School when it opened in 1963. After graduating in the second class ever from Highland, Bill would obtain an undergraduate degree in philosophy from ISU. He then received a Master’s in Philosophy from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1985.

Bill would teach for a short period at ISU in the 1980s and for one year in 1993. After travelling East Asia for about 17 years, Bill would return to the Gate City to stay in 2000 when he again joined the ISU faculty.

Russell Wahl, an ISU professor of philosophy who retired earlier this year, says Bill’s passing is both a tremendous loss for the school’s philosophy department as well as the Pocatello community.

“I’ve known Bill since I came here in 1985,” Wahl said. “He was very interested in logic and studied the teachings of Charles Sanders Peirce, a 19th century logician. Bill was a very interesting philosopher and a great conversationalist. I don’t know how we will replace him.”

Wahl added that Bill often garnered a comparison to Indiana Jones, as he was always sporting an old, beat-up fedora atop his head.

Steve described his brother as a person in which everything he did revolved in some way around philosophy.

“He loved to read and always carried a book with him everywhere he went,” Steve said. “He loved to travel and taught English at a women’s college in Taiwan and various private colleges in Japan for several years. He lived overseas for a long period of time, about 16 or 17 years.”

Bill’s passion for philosophy came from his father, according to an article published in ISU’s school newspaper, The Bengal, in 2014.

“[He] spoke of music around me all the time, and there was this love of asking questions and trying to find out the nature of reality,” Bill said about his late father, J. Dean McCurdy, seven years ago.

When Bill returned to the states in 2000, he brought with him countless stories of what life was like in the Pacific Rim.

Some of the East Asian culture that Bill returned to the Gate City with took root at Sumisu, a sushi restaurant in downtown Pocatello that might not be what it is today without him.

Sumisu co-owner Daniel Russo says, “Without exaggeration, Bill McCurdy changed my life.”

Russo added, “Bill helped me accomplish everything that I have done so far. If it wasn’t for Bill, I wouldn’t be where I am today. He was such a cool guy that completely changed my life when he convinced me to go to Japan and follow my dreams and get past my doubt and my fears.”

Russo continued, “He would always come in and ask about the fish we had and we would treat him when we had something special. We would chat about his research and what papers he was writing and all the stuff that went over my head because I couldn’t understand the highbrow intelligence of it. I would just sit there, jaw gaped, listening to this brilliant man talking about what he was most passionate about. He constantly told me what I was doing was cool and that I dedicated my life to sushi the same way he dedicated his life to philosophy.”

Steve said there will be a memorial service for Bill at the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church on North Fifth Avenue at 6 p.m. on Friday followed by a funeral service at 11 a.m. Saturday.