Christopher James (Jamie) Bishop, 35, the bespectacled German-language instructor at Virginia Tech who rode his bike to campus and often met with students outside of class for further practice, was a “born teacher.”
Mr. Bishop grew up in Pine Mountain, Ga., and earned his B.A. in German from the University of Georgia. Afterward he traveled to Germany as a Fulbright scholar, where he studied early and ancient history and archaeology. He returned to his alma mater to earn an M.A. in German. But he took a detour, he says in his online journal, back to Germany for four years to improve his linguistic skills, teach English, become a connoisseur of wheat beer, and woo a certain Fräulein, Stefanie Hofer, who later became his wife. Ms. Hofer also teaches German at Virginia Tech.
Mr. Bishop was just as passionate about art as he was about German. He was a multimedia artist and photographer who appreciated comic-book covers by Dave McKean, one of his artistic superheroes. Mr. Bishop designed covers for many books by his father, the novelist and short-story writer Michael Bishop. The elder Mr. Bishop is a writer in residence at LaGrange College, in Georgia, where he teaches creative writing.
Alex Wilson, a fellow artist and a friend of Jamie’s, recalls that the two “used to meet at his place or at Weaver Street to trade foreign films and comic books, to talk about art, and about changing the world with art.”
“He wasn’t going to do something unless he could give it the time to do it right, and the proof is in the work,” Mr. Wilson says. In December, Mr. Bishop built a coffee table composed of 72 wooden tiles that he had cut and individually painted. “He called it one of the most creative things he’s ever done,” says Mr. Wilson.
Before teaching at Virginia Tech, Mr. Bishop worked as an academic-technology liaison at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he provided technical support for faculty and staff members and graduate students. “He was everybody’s friend, which is unusual in academia,” says Valeria X. D’Alcantara, an educational-technology specialist and a former colleague at Chapel Hill. “He had a gift for lightening the moment with a wit and wisdom all his own.”
Mr. Bishop was an Atlanta Braves fan and an excellent racquetball player, friends say. He enjoyed hiking and going to the movies. He had recently applied for an M.F.A. program in photography and graphic design at Radford University. “He was just an all-around fascinating person, which is obvious, if you take a look at his artwork and all of the areas of education he pursued,” says Holly Boatright, who grew up close to his family and attended First United Methodist Church of Pine Mountain, where Mr. Bishop was still a member. —Lauren Smith
