CLEARWATER, Fla. — A longtime professor and artist at St. Petersburg College was hit and killed while riding his bicycle to work earlier this month.
Clearwater Police and Clearwater Fire Rescue responded to the crash on Feb. 5 around noon. It happened at Drew Street and Maine Avenue.
A driver in a truck struck and killed 56-year-old Kevin Grass.
He was a professor at St. Petersburg College on the Clearwater campus.
His wife recalled how she received the news from two police officers.
"I looked out the window and saw two police officers pull into our cul-de-sac and I thought I wonder what's going on our there and then I saw they were coming to our house. I opened the door and I said, is my husband okay? I saw on their faces that this was going to be the worst news ever. It was such a shock," said Michaela Oberlaender, Kevin's wife.
Oberlaender said her husband taught at St. Petersburg College on the Clearwater campus. He has been a professor since 1997.
Oberlaender is also an adjunct professor at the college. Grass was a talented artist who always rode his bike to work.
"The route he would take would be about 14.5 miles from our home to our campus, and he was going east on Drew Street in the bicycle lane, and he was 0.6 miles from our campus when he was killed," said Oberlaender.
The couple met in graduate school at the University of Georgia.
"We walked out of an exam at the exact same time, and it happened to be on this 24th birthday," she said.
The couple's home is filled with his artwork.
"Kevin always loved realism. He was willing to paint anything in a realistic style," said Oberlaender.
"He was my best friend. He was absolutely a wonderful person. He was incredibly funny, generous and warm and entertaining. Everything was a lot more fun with Kevin."
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