Sawyer David Bingham Bland

Sawyer David Bland was an ingenious man of science, a nimble swordsman, and a gifted actor, artist, and musician. He was charming, compassionate, and fiercely loyal, driven by unending curiosity and a lifelong quest for truth.

Sawyer had brilliant blue eyes, a disarming crooked smile, and a wickedly clever — and often dark — sense of humor. Kids adored him. He joked, “I like kids – I just can’t eat a whole one.” Sawyer loved puzzles, Sherlock Holmes, mechanical pencils, white boards, magic, books and videogames, tailored vests, frock coats and pocket watches, and the inherent thrill of the quest for knowledge.

He died Oct. 26, 2025, after an inexplicable cardiac arrest, cradled in the arms of his mother and surrounded by those who loved him. He was 26.

Like Shakespeare, Sawyer believed, “All the world’s a stage.” He started acting at 9. At 12, he was cast in “Les Misérables” at Greasepaint Youtheatre in Scottsdale, the first of more than a dozen shows he’d do there over the next 10 years. It was his second home.

Sawyer was masterful onstage — natural, fearless, his comedic timing in roles like the narrator in “Rocky Horror Picture Show” impeccable. He disappeared into every character. The scheming Don John in “Much Ado About Nothing.” The murderous Tybalt in “Romeo & Juliet.” Franz in “The Producers.” He liked playing bad guys, the opposite of who he was in real life.

“For most people who know me, it’s not something you would really expect,” Sawyer said in his acceptance speech for Outstanding Supporting Actor for his role as Black Stache in “Peter and the Starcatcher” at the National Youth Arts Awards in 2017. “I’m definitely more of a science nerd than an artist, but art and science are inbred in me, in my opinion.”

Sawyer was an exquisite pianist, his long fingers dancing over the keys as he played. His favorite piece was Mozart’s “Lux Aeterna,” the final movement of his famous unfinished Requiem Mass, K. 626. Sawyer explained, “It is one of the few songs that have never been able to escape my mind or my hands. It is a song I seem incapable of forgetting how to play.”

He taught a simplified arrangement of it to his young piano students, delighting in the fact that they not only mastered the piece but also saw their math scores soar.

Because like physician and philosopher Dr. Martin H. Fischer, Sawyer also believed, “All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.” He never stopped asking, “Why?”

As a kid, Sawyer had a book called, “101 Great Science Experiments” — and he conducted everyone. He got his first chemistry set at 7, a microscope at 8. He built circuits, launched rockets, and hunted for meteorites in the desert.

As Sawyer got older, he built Tesla coils, radio frequency detectors, and directed electromagnetic ray guns. He created intricate art with fractal burning and charmed girlfriends with green-fire hearts made with methanol and sodium borate on the pool deck in his backyard.

His bedroom was littered with journals, handwritten mathematical equations, schematics, and blueprints. He built coilguns and researched drone swarm technologies, directional hacking and laser-induced plasma channels. He studied engineering, quantum physics, math, and philosophy — always seeking for the truth.

It may be why Sawyer was so honest, incapable of telling a lie. As a kid, he’d tell on himself. As an adult, it made for deep conversations about things that mattered. That’s what the science, philosophy, and art were about for him: the search for truth. Sawyer wanted to understand everything.

Sawyer attended Broadmor Elementary School in Tempe and graduated from Arizona School for the Arts in Phoenix in 2017. In 2023, he earned a Bachelor of Science and Engineering (BSE) in electrical engineering with an emphasis in electromagnetics from the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University.

For someone who claimed to be intellectual, not emotional — to think when others feel — Sawyer was innately accepting and kind. He was a good friend. A best friend. He was a great hugger — for at least 10 seconds at a time. Because of course he knew the science behind that, too.

Sawyer didn’t care about things. He cared about people. He’d give his last $10 to someone who needed it more than he did. If you ever wrote Sawyer a note, gave him a card, or drew him a picture, he kept it. Every show poster signed by his castmates. Every drawing from his piano students. Every love note.

Yet, as good as he was, Sawyer always asked himself, “Am I a good man?” It was the question that guided him. But Sawyer didn’t ask for an answer. “I don’t think it matters,” he said. “Not as long as I ask.” Sawyer was an extraordinarily good man.

Sawyer suffered a sudden cardiac arrest on Oct. 20, 2025, which deprived his brain of oxygen and caused catastrophic damage. His hospital room was filled with love — family and friends came from all over to his bedside, sharing stories, holding his hand and playing music. He wasn’t in pain. He wasn’t afraid.

Sawyer died six days later, following a walk of honor through hallways lined with family, friends, and staff at Valleywise Health Medical Center — a tribute to his generosity as an organ donor. Three people received Sawyer’s gifts through the Donor Network of Arizona.

When Sawyer was a junior at ASU, he took a class called “Death & Dying: Cross-Cultural Perspectives.” For one assignment, he wrote his own funeral plan, calling for it to be held at Greasepaint Youtheatre, his closest friends to read from Camus’ “The Stranger,” Nietzsche’s “Will to Power,” and Seneca’s letters on death, and an open bar. And then Sawyer wrote: “I think if there is a ‘best’ way to celebrate my life, it would be by getting drunk, losing yourself, and thinking hard about things that are hard to think about.”

A celebration of Sawyer’s life was held on Nov. 22, 2025, at Tempe Center for the Arts. (It turned out Greasepaint wasn’t big enough to hold all the people who loved Sawyer.) His wishes were realized, complete with a tribute to their fallen member by the Phoenix Society of Historical Swordsmanship and performances by his castmates of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” and “Time Warp.” He’d have loved it.

Sawyer is deeply missed and lovingly remembered by his mother, Karina Bland; grandmother, Marilyn Bland; uncle, Danny Bland; father, Jimmy Bingham; sisters, Savannah Montes de Oca (Martín) and Sonnet Aguirre (Chris); brother, Skyler Bingham; nephew, Kadin Chaira; nieces, Audie and Iris Aguirre; his family in the U.S. and New Zealand, including great aunt, Dana Swan; great uncle, Michael Meister; cousins, Virgil Bland (Tamatha), Kasey Caudill (Alex), Theresa Gotter (Janet); second cousins, Brayleigh, Evie, Willow, Eloise Karina and Cecil Caudill, and Lucas and Tripp Bland; his chosen family; those who shaped Sawyer’s life, including Aaron Carriere and Maureen Dias Watson; legions of (best) friends and castmates; and thousands of readers who got glimpses of his growing up in the longtime column his mother wrote for The Arizona Republic.