William Vargas, 79, who was raised in Rutland, Vermont, and also retired in Rutland, died peacefully at the Terrace senior-living community in Woodstock, Vermont, on June 4. He had been in declining health with dementia for several years.

As a high school English teacher, William was greatly admired by generations of his students. He taught for twelve years at Oxbow High School in Bradford, Vermont, and later, for twenty years, at Gilford High School in Gilford, New Hampshire.

He had a sardonic and ever-present sense of humor, a keen intellect, and a voracious curiosity about the world around him. He particularly loved stories about his native Rutland and, given his own heritage, stories dealing with the city's ethnic, Italian-American and Irish-American communities. He was a devoted member of Christ the King parish in Rutland.

Vargas was born in Rutland in 1945, and graduated from Mount Saint Joseph Academy and Lyndon State College. Later, he did post-graduate work at Saint Michael's College and the Middlebury College Bread Loaf School of English. He earned a master's degree from Middlebury.

He retired from teaching in 2004, and moved back to Rutland, where he enjoyed reading, gardening, watching baseball on tv, and participating in adult education courses.

William Vargas is survived by his sister Honoré Vargas Hager and her husband Robert, both of Woodstock, Vermont, and survived by his brother, Dr. Joseph Vargas, who practiced at Rutland Regional Medical Center and who now lives with his wife Ann in Vero Beach, Florida, and Duxbury, Massachusetts. William is also survived by six nieces.

Arrangements are under the direction of Cabot Funeral Home in Woodstock. William will be interred alongside his mother, Josephine and his father, Joseph, at St. Josephs Cemetery in Rutland.