Harold Winters

Harold Abraham “Duke” Winters died of a heart attack on Sunday, June 26, 2005, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Winters was born on August 22, 1931, in Chicago, Illinois. After serving in the Navy, he completed his bachelor’s degree at Northern Illinois University, and master’s and doctoral degrees (1960) in geography at Northwestern University. He was a regular faculty member at Northern Illinois University and Portland State University, before a thirty-year tenure at Michigan State University. Winters was also a visiting professor at Northwestern University, Simon Fraser University, Georgetown University, Arizona State University, and the Universities of British Columbia and South Carolina, as well as serving as a guest lecturer at nearly fifty other universities. He had three separate one-year affiliations with the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and was twice awarded the U.S. Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal.

Winters had research interests in glacial geomorphology, especially of the Midwestern United States, and later in military geography. He authored or co-authored more than 100 academic publications, several with his primary collaborator, Richard Rieck of Western Illinois University. He will be remembered for his book Battling the Elements: Weather & Terrain in the Conduct of War (1998), as well as for his advocacy of classic regional geographic studies. In 1989 Winters earned an AAG Honors citation for his service to the AAG, and in 1995 he received the Mel Marcus Distinguished Career Award from the AAG’s Geomorphology Specialty Group.

Harold Winters (Necrology). 2005. AAG Newsletter 40(8): 29.

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David Frost

David Frost, a Concordia University geography professor, died May 25.

Born in England in 1943, he graduated from McGill with BSc and MSc degrees in geography. In the 1960s McGill had major research interests in the Caribbean, and he worked in climatology projects on the islands and Guyana. He went to Birmingham University for his PhD to pursue his interests in the microclimatology of agricultural crops in the tropics.

After working at Queen Mary College, London, and the University of Regina, he joined Sir George Williams University in 1972 as an assistant professor, and within six months he was Chair of the Geography Department (1973-79).

He served in this capacity again from 1991-94, and as chair of the Geology Department from 1995-98. From 1984-85 he was Assistant Dean – Division II of the newly created Faculty of Arts and Science. He also sat on the Board of Governors (1989-92), and was President of Concordia University Faculty Association at the time of his death.

He had a keen sense of the discipline’s relevance to current issues, and his early interest in computer techniques was crucial in spearheading the Geography Department’s development of Geographical Information Systems (GIS).

Frost became an AAG member in 1973 and was also a long-time member of the New England-St Lawrence Valley Geographical Society, having served over the years as its President and Canadian representative.

David Frost (Necrology). 2005. AAG Newsletter 40(10): 54.

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Melvin Frost

Melvin “Mel” J. Frost died on June 26, 2004. Frost earned a bachelor’s in geology from Arizona State University in 1959, a master’s in geography from Brigham Young University in 1960, and a PhD in geography from the University of Florida in 1964. His first teaching position was at the University of Southern Mississippi. He came to Arizona State University in 1965 and spent twenty years teaching there before retiring in 1985.

Melvin Frost (Necrology). 2005. AAG Newsletter 40(7):23.

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John Garver

John Garver, former Chief Cartographer for National Geographic, died on May 22, 2005. Born July 11, 1928, he earned his BS at the U.S. Military Academy a West Point in 1952. Recognizing his keen geographical intellect and leadership potential in the classroom the Army sent him to Syracuse University in 1963 for training to teach geography at West Point. He completed his MA in 1965 and became and instructor in the Department of Earth, Space and Graphic Sciences at West Point in 1966. In 1969-70, he served as Parachute and Ranger and earned the Combat Infantryman’s Badge while commanding an Infantry Battalion in the Vietnam War and also served as deputy commander of a brigade. He was awarded numerous medals, including four Bronze Stars—two of these for valor. Other assignments took him around the world to various military installations in Germany, the Panama Canal Zone, Saudi Arabia, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Fort Benning, Georgia.

Following these assignments, he again returned to West Point as a Professor of Geography and was awarded his PhD from Syracuse in 1981 completing his dissertation topic on the “The Role of the United States Army in the Colonization of the Trans-Missouri West: Kansas, 1804-1861”. Meanwhile, he initiated two academic programs within the Geography Department at West Point that are still active today. The first is degree program in Environmental Engineering that focuses on global environmental concerns and the role of military. The second program, “Military Geography.” was John’s forte and incorporates historical geography at its core. During his time at West Point he hosted geographers, environmentalists, mountaineers, and American icons for on-campus lectures, as well as countless guests and former classmates from a broad spectrum of disciplines.

Garver was the author of several papers on and publications on geographic subjects including Landscape Atlas of the USSR and Selected Aspects of the Geography of Poverty. In 1982 he retired as Colonel from West Point and soon assumed the position of Senior Assistant Editor and Chief Cartographer for the Cartographic Division at the National Geographic Society (NGS). During his career at NGS he led the transition to computer cartography and initiated many projects, including the “Making of America Series” with his former advisor Donald Meinig as chief editorial consultant (seventeen regional maps) and “Making of Canada” series (six maps), with R. Cole Harris and John Warkentin. Garver launched the renowned Historical Atlas of the United States prepared as the principal work in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the NGS. The atlas featured the work of historical geographers such as Donald Meinig, Peirce Lewis, Sam Hilliard, Wilbur Zelinsky, and Fred Kniffen as well as scholars in history, anthropology, folklore, and architecture. As president of the Washington Map Society in 1987–88 he continued to host many lectures and events to bring this community to his new front porch at NGS. He published an article in the Portolan entitled Isaac McCoy: Forgotten Mapper of the Trans-Missouri West. Two other major atlases were produced using state of the art technology and imagery—the Atlas of North America: Space Age Portrait of a Continent (1985) and the Sixth Edition Atlas of the World. Again, through his impressive network of scholars and explorers, he released the acclaimed NGS map of “The World” with Arthur Robinson’s projection in 1988, which spearheaded an iconic look and format for the next seven years in many geographic publications. He also sponsored several cartographers in residence during this period hosting Arthur Robinson, David Woodward, and Judy Olson for staff tutorials and lectures on innovations in cartography. With mountaineer and explorer Brad Washburn, he also produced the highly-awarded “Map of Mt. Everest” included in the December 1988 issue of National Geographic. Garver spearheaded a long-standing relationship with ESRI and paved the way for a viable and sustaining digital mapping process that is reflected in subsequent editions of the Atlas of the World, now in its 8th edition.

After ten years he retired from NGS in 1991. He continued his literary and academic pursuits with lectures and travels to all corners of the world. He was elected to the Cosmos Club in 1993.In 2002 he published an entry on “Military Geography” for the thirty-volume Encyclopedia of the Behavioral and Social Sciences by Elsevier Press, Oxford. He was in the process of writing a book about the role of the U.S. Army in the colonization of the pre-Civil War trans-Missouri West when he died.

John B. Garver Jr. (Necrology). 2005. AAG Newsletter 40(9): 23.

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John Robert Dunkle Sr

John Robert Dunkle Sr. died in Tucson, Arizona, on May 22, 2005. He was born on June 30, 1924, in Jacksonville, Florida. Dunkle served as a weather observer in the Army Air Corps in World War II and earned degrees from the University of Florida, the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1953 he earned his PhD at Clark University. Dunkle was a professor of geography at the University of Florida for forty-six years and held the rank of Professor Emeritus after he retired. He and Erwin Raisz authored the first statistical atlas of Florida.

John Robert Dunkle Sr. (Necrology). 2005. AAG Newsletter 40(7): 23.

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Nancy Freeman Dow

Nancy Dow, the face behind the camera in the Geographers on Film series, died September 16, 2005, at age seventy-five. Since 1982, she worked with her husband Maynard Weston Dow as chief videographer, technician, and clerk for the series, helping to produce a unique archival resource that contributes understanding to the intellectual history of geography. Filming interviews of distinguished geographers from around the world, usually in hotel rooms at AAG Annual Meetings, she graced the occasions with hospitality, humor, and professional dignity. For her meritorious service, she earned a special citation from the Task Force on Women in Geographic Education in 1996. In 2002, the Michigan State University Library established the “Maynard Weston Dow and Nancy Freeman Dow Geographers on Film Collection” to preserve the original films and videotapes, and to maintain the collection as a teaching resource and research archive.

Born and raised in Portland, Maine, Dow earned a bachelor’s degree in Art from Smith College. She was a resident of Bristol, New Hampshire for thirty-three years.

Nancy Freeman Dow (Necrology). 2005. AAG Newsletter 40(10): 54.

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Robert Goodman

Geography professor at Wayne State University, died April 15, 2005, at age eighty-six.

The youngest of four children, Goodman was born in Gwinn in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He studied geography at the University of Chicago, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 1941, he went to work for the U.S. Army Map Service in Chicago and in 1942, was drafted by the Army to make war-related maps in Washington. He was honorably discharged as a technical sergeant in 1945.

Goodman earned his PhD in geography at Northwestern University. He also met his wife, Marjorie Smith, a fellow geography student at Northwestern; they married in 1950.

He joined Wayne State University’s geography department in 1948.

In his teaching, Goodman used more than 10,000 photo slides from a lifetime of trips to Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Before the days of computers, he also allowed students to draft their maps in his Grosse Pointe Woods basement, which was filled with overhead cameras, tables, desks, and maps. He eventually incorporated film into his lesson plans and made a movie called “Growth Patterns in Detroit.”

In 1961, Goodman earned a Fulbright scholarship to spend a year in India to establish a geography department at the University of New Delhi.

He won numerous accolades including the Wayne State Excellence in Teaching Award in 1979 and a Distinguished Teaching Award from the NCGE in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, in 1983. Goodman retired in 1983.

Robert Goodman (Necrology). 2005. AAG Newsletter 40(6): 19.

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Richard Zeller

Richard Eugene Zeller, aged fifty-six, a senior-management analyst for the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles in Tallahassee, Florida, died on April 4, 2005.

Zeller earned a bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University (1970) and a master’s and doctorate from Ohio State University (1972 and 1978).

Zeller was an AAG member from 1972 until his death.

Richard E. Zeller (Necrology). 2006. AAG Newsletter 41(4): 11.

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Becky Zerlentes

Becky Zerlentes, a faculty member teaching geography and economics courses at Front Range Community College, Colorado, died unexpectedly on April 3, 2005. Zerlentes obtained her BS in actuarial sciences and then an master’s and a PhD (2003) in geography, all from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her field of research was regional science; for her PhD she developed a model to integrate economic and ecological interactions in Mexican maquilladora border communities.

Becky Zerlentes (Necrology). 2005. AAG Newsletter 40(6): 19.

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Henry Bruman

Henry Bruman died March 6, 2005, of a heart attack. Bruman, was a longtime University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) geography professor who helped create a highly regarded map library and other programs at the Westwood campus.

A Berlin native who came to Los Angeles at age eight, Bruman earned undergraduate degrees from UCLA in chemistry and geography before receiving a doctorate in geography from UC Berkeley in 1940. He joined the UCLA faculty in 1945 and over the next four decades played a major role in the development of its geography department, acting as chair of the department from 1957 to 1962.

Bruman was an assistant professor of geography at UCLA in 1946, when he called together geography educators from across the state to discuss the status of geography in the schools of California beginning what is now know as the California Geographical Society.

Bruman was known as an expert in Latin American cultural-historical geography, plant geography and land use in the American West, and on the career of German nature researcher and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Shortly before his retirement in 1983, Bruman established an educational foundation that created endowed chairs at UCLA in geography and German history. He made large donations to the UCLA library, which named its map library in his honor in 1987.

Henry J. Bruman (Necrology). 2005. AAG Newsletter 40(5): 21.

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