Thursday evening, the UA, and indeed the entire state of Arizona, lost an invaluable community member, an outstanding scholar and a tireless lawmaker who worked to make the state a better place to live.

Sen. Andy Nichols, of District 13, died of a heart attack Thursday night in Phoenix. He was 64.

For his family and friends, and for the UA community, Andy Nichols will be remembered as so much more than merely a state senator.

A Stanford-educated medical doctor, Nichols worked as a professor of family and community medicine and taught classes in the UA College of Medicine. He served as director of the university's Rural Health Office, where he'd been since 1970.