Edison College professor dies scuba diving
By TRACY X. MIGUEL,
tmiguel@naplesnews.com
February 1, 2005
A Naples professor's last day was spent exploring the depths of the sea.
Robert F. Fulton, 63, died while scuba diving with members of a diving club from Fort Lauderdale in Hollywood on Sunday.
Faculty and students at Edison College's Collier County campus grieved the loss of their teacher on Monday.
Fulton, a professor of sociology, psychology and distance learning, began as a faculty member in 1987, first as an adjunct teacher at the Fort Myers campus. In 1989 he became a full-time faculty member, and he also taught at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Jeff Allbritten, Edison's Collier campus president, said he was one of the first faculty members to join before the current campus was built.
Shocked, Allbritten said Fulton was a "true gentleman" and someone he could always count on.
Away from work, Fulton, a member of the Collier County REEF Research Team, an international organization engaged in education about and protection of marine life, made more than 50 dives annually off the coast of Florida and in world-famous dive sites such as the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Cozumel, Mexico, Belize in Central America and Roatan off the coast of Honduras.
"He really did love scuba diving . . . we went on several cruises that were based on where he could go scuba diving," said his wife, Peggy Fulton, 59.
In less than four years, Fulton received an Advanced Open Water certification, the nitrox diving credentials and Diver's Alert Network and was a certified scuba rescue diver, some through Professional Association of Dive Instructors (PADI) and others were through NAUI.
Hollywood Police Detective Carlos Negron, a department spokesman, said a group of five people were diving approximately one mile offshore 70-foot under water around the Hollywood Boulevard area at 12:48 p.m. on Sunday when a witness noticed that one of the divers Fulton had been under water for a while.
Divers found Fulton at the bottom of the ocean and he was nonresponsive so they called the Coast Guard. He was transported to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, where he died at 1:48 p.m. Sunday.
Fulton earned an associate's degree in arts and bachelor's degree of science from Hershey Junior College in Pennsylvania, and later a master's degree of science and a doctorate in sociology from Oklahoma State University.
He served two years in Vietnam with American advisers, Military Assistance Command.
Taking tasks beyond teaching, Fulton also designed and was the Web master of the Collier Campus Web site.
"It will be impossible to replace him," said Allbritten. "He was really a leader."
"He was loved by his family and his students," said Fulton. He had two children, two stepchildren and four grandchildren.
Fulton said that her husband would have wanted to share with others his diving adventures.
To learn more about Fulton's trips, visit his Web site
www.rfulton.com.
