Our Patron

ROBERT ROCK BELLIVEAU. Feb. 1, 1932 - July 3, 2024

Dr. Robert Rock Belliveau died on July 3, 2024, at the age of 92. The longtime Las Vegas resident was a cornerstone of the community, an accomplished and influential physician whose work benefited countless people and assisted important causes in southern Nevada and around the world.

Robert was born in 1932 in Worcester, Massachusetts and attended Clark University there. He received his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis, trained in pathology at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis and was a Resident in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at San Francisco General Hospital. Robert served with distinction as a Captain in the United States Air Force, stationed at the Air Force hospital in Tachikawa, Japan.

He established his practice in Las Vegas in 1963 and cofounded Associated Pathologists Laboratories in 1966, which he and his partners grew to 1,200 employees. He served as the Chief Pathologist at University Medical Center of Southern Nevada for more than 25 years. During his distinguished medical career, he published extensively (including a landmark article that provided new insights into structures in the kidney), gained recognition from his peers (including the 1990 Nevada State Medical Association Distinguished Physician Award), was an enthusiastic teacher and lecturer, established several training programs that improved the quality of medical care in Nevada, and served as a visiting pathologist in Nairobi, Milan, Jerusalem, London, India, Stockholm, and Japan.

After retirement in 2000, his interest in geology and botany led him to explore the rocks and flora of the desert and -- through his skill with the microscope -- capture their inner worlds with micro-photography. His unique and astonishing photos of plants were featured in national periodicals including Smithsonian and The New York Times, culminating in a solo exhibition at the Springs Preserve in Las Vegas in 2018. Robert was a student of languages who could delight native speakers with his fluency and masterful pronunciation of Italian and Japanese (to say nothing of his occasional flourishes in Yiddish and Polish when he met speakers of those languages). His other interests ranged greatly, from a great dedication to personal health and exercise, to adventures with scuba diving and skiing, to being a highly skilled chess player, to an unceasing engagement with astronomy, physics, physiology, geology, and other sciences. He even wrote a novel, and he also won a Las Vegas blackjack tournament. He earned abundant love and deep respect from relatives, friends, and acquaintances for his kindness, integrity, inner strength, humanity, and humor.

Robert met the artist Rita Deanin Abbey in the 1970s and they married in 1985. He was infinitely devoted to her and did everything he could to help her work flourish, ultimately building the Rita Deanin Abbey Art Museum, which opened in 2022. Robert and his surviving stepsons Joshua and Aaron are eager to share Rita's art with the world and secure her legacy. Rita and Robert’s love -- their unparalleled commitment to each other -- strengthened the discipline and willpower necessary to build a lasting cultural oasis in the desert.