Roger Taylor Sharp
1949 - 2022 / A Giant Fell on August 24, 2022.

Scottsdale, Arizona — Roger Taylor Sharp: attorney at law, ardent husband, incessant dad, speed-dial friend, and doting grandpa, died unexpectedly at the Mayo Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona as the result of Interstitial Lung Disease. He was seventy-two years old. Known affectionately as Rog, he lived asymptomatically with the disease for six years. Following a family trip to Colorado in early August, Rog developed breathing difficulties. He was hospitalized on August 14th. On August 23rd, his wife and three children surrounded him and they all talked about fishing trips, his greatest legal triumphs, death logistics, and old memories until after midnight. He died comfortably early the following morning with a clear knowledge of where he was going next.
Born September 22, 1949, to Dr. Max Sharp and Rose Parkinson Sharp, he grew up in Salt Lake City and attended Highland High School. He met Terrie Lee Hansen at an Artic Circle in 1966; she told him the courtship wouldn't last the summer. Despite receiving a full football scholarship to Iowa State University, Rog returned to Salt Lake City early in his freshman year to be with Terrie. They were married in the Salt Lake City Temple on September 9, 1969 (nearly fifty-four summers ago).
After completing their bachelor's degrees at the University of Utah, the newlyweds moved to Tacoma, Washington, where Roger attended Law School at the University of Puget Sound. He graduated in 1975 and passed the Utah State Bar in 1976.
He found his legal niche championing victims of catastrophic injury and medical mismanagement; he believed in advocating for desperate cases and lost causes.
At the age of 56, he took the Arizona State Bar and was admitted to practice in Arizona in 2007. For over ten years he ran practices in both states.
He has been named one of the best Lawyers in America since 1995. In 2012, he was named one of the Arizona Top Ten Plaintiff Verdict Winners for the year. In 2016, he was admitted to practice for the United States Supreme Court. Throughout his forty-seven-year professional career, Roger obtained special admittance before 12 other State Courts and 5 other Federal Courts.
He served in two Bishoprics, one Stake Presidency, and two High Counsels for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He most enjoyed teaching in Priesthood Quorum where he taught for the last twelve years.
Rog lived for working hard, planning family vacations, golfing with his buddies, and enjoying his posterity.
He is survived by his wife, Terrie; their three children; Tony (Karen Downs), Nick (Natalie Senger), and Liv Spikes (Blue); as well as six grandchildren; Riley, Alana, Mason, Ethan, Landry Spikes, and Parker Spikes.

Services are being privately held at an LDS Church in Scottsdale, Arizona. Internment, Memorial Holladay Cemetery, Holladay, Utah.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests a book be donated in Rog's honor to the BYU Library. https://lib.byu.edu/services/memorial-gift-program/

Published by The Salt Lake Tribune from Aug. 31 to Sep. 4, 2022.