Obituary: Eileen Resnikoff

<p>Eileen Resnikoff served with determination as principal of Santa Rosa's Doyle Park Elementary School, a position she held for a decade before cancer forced her to take a medical leave in 2004.</p><p>“She loved her Doyle Park School and she gave everything she had to improve that school environment,” her husband, Larry Resnikoff, said Wednesday at a memorial service for her.</p><p>Resnikoff, an educator for 22 years, died Saturday in a local hospital. She was 58 years old and had battled cancer for 18 years.</p><p>During her tenure as principal she led a successful effort to close a liquor store next door to the school and helped obtain a library building on campus.</p><p>Stephen Nielsen, who served as an administrator with Resnikoff at Rincon Valley Middle School, recalled her as a gifted problem-solver who supported her teachers.</p><p>Nielsen was brought to Doyle Park in 2004 to serve as interim principal when Resnikoff went on leave.</p><p>“I felt like the Maytag repairman because that place was so finely run,” he said.</p><p>Born in Los Angeles, Resnikoff grew up east of Pasadena in Duarte. She graduated from California State University, Long Beach, and began her teaching career in Long Beach.</p><p>In 1976 she married Larry Resnikoff. In 1982 the couple moved to Santa Rosa, where Resnikoff began teaching at Cook Middle School. At his wife's urging, Larry Resnikoff became an educator and remains a history teacher at Rincon Valley Middle.</p><p>Joe Sewell, the principal there and later at Piner High, encouraged Eileen Resnikoff to become an administrator, her husband said. Sewell later hired her as an assistant principal at Cook.</p><p>She served there until 1990, when she became an assistant principal at Rincon Valley Middle. She became principal of Doyle Park in 1994.</p><p>During her battles with cancer she was hospitalized about eight times. Larry Resnikoff credited his wife's physicians, Dr. George Bisbee and Dr. Marek Bozdech, for the care they gave, including nine years when she was free of the disease.</p><p>Resnikoff enjoyed her travels to Europe and Mexico. In retirement she wrote poetry, took lessons in Hebrew and in recent weeks was preparing for her Bat Mitzvah.</p><p>Along with her husband, survivors include a daughter, Lisa Buerger of Santa Rosa; a son, Joey Resnikoff of Santa Barbara; a brother, Steve Morrison of Provo, Utah; and twin grandsons.</p><p>Services were under the direction of Daniels Chapel of the Roses.</p><p>The family prefers memorial contributions to the Breast Cancer Society or a hospice organization.</p><p>— Robert Digitale</p>