William L. Graf

William L. Graf one of the nation’s leading geomorphologists and riverine policy scholars passed away on December 27, 2019 at the age of 72. At the time of his death, he was working on a book length manuscript on American Rivers using multiple lenses—arts, history, science, engineering, public policy, and philosophy.

Graf was a Foundation University Professor Emeritus at the University of South Carolina. Before coming to the University of South Carolina in 2001, he was the Regents’ Professor at Arizona State University. Graf received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1974 with his first academic appointment at the University of Iowa after a brief stint as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force.

Dr. Graf published 14 books, his most notable are Fluvial Processes in Dryland Rivers, Wilderness Preservation and Sagebrush Rebellions, Plutonium and the Rio Grande (which won the Kirk Bryan Award from the Geological Society of America), and Dam Removal: Science and Decision Making. Among his more than 150 publications are his seminal articles on the hydrologic and geomorphic effects of hydroelectric dams on American rivers (“Dam nation: A geographic census of American dams and their large-scale hydrologic impacts” in Water Resources Research (1999) and “Downstream hydrologic and geomorphic effects of large dams on American rivers” appearing in Geomorphology (2006)).

Dr. Graf received numerous awards throughout his distinguished career from the AAG (G.K. Gilbert Award, Research Honors, Meredith F. Burrill Award, Mel Marcus Career Achievement Award, Water Resources Distinguished Career Award), the Geological Society of America (Kirk Bryan Award), and the British Geomorphological Research Group (David Linton Research Award). He also received the Founder’s Metal of the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain, the John Wesley Powell Award from the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal for his contributions to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This was in addition to his receipt of the National Associate award from the National Academy of Sciences and his election as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Equally impressive is Dr. Graf’s service record to the AAG and the Geological Society of America’s, Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division. For the former he served as Vice-President and President, a Council member, and on numerous committees. For the GSA he was also Vice-President and President as well as serving on additional committees. During his career, Graf served as an associate editor for the Annals, PG, GSA Bulletin, and Environmental and Engineering Geosciences.

Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. Graf never lost sight of his intellectual home in Geography. He supervised 38 PhD and master’s students and served on many more graduate committees. While trained in physical geography with a minor in water resources management, Graf’s perspective and interest in the intersection of science and policy for public land and water made him one of the country’s most sought after science advisors and expert witness in resolving conflicts between environmental preservation and economic development, and the interaction between science and natural resources decision-making. Most of these policy consultations engaged his expertise on human impacts on river morphology, processes of contaminant transport and storage in river sediments, downstream impacts of large dams, and riparian habitat changes in rivers. He advised local, state, and federal agencies (including the Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Energy, and the National Park Service), as well as non-profits. He served as a consultant and expert witness in 30 legal cases on wetland and river processes and the effects of hydroelectric dams on downstream rivers. President Clinton appointed him to the Presidential Commission on American Heritage Rivers, and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel confirmed him as Chair of the Environmental Advisory Board of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Dr. Graf felt that professional service to the non-governmental entities such as the Heinz Center and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine was critical in fostering the intersection between science and public policy. Not only was he a member of many different Boards but also standing committees including chairing the Geographical Sciences Committee, four committees overseeing science for the restoration of Florida Everglades, the committee on sediment issues in the Missouri River. His longstanding advocacy for geographical science to support public policy decision making on rivers and land management have left their mark and opened doors for other geographers to carry his prospective forward.

While his core was geography, the discipline never bounded his identity and scholarship. His willingness to seek knowledge, ideas, and approaches and integrate these into his study of rivers, public lands, and policy has enriched our discipline in a myriad of ways both large and small. Dr. Graf was among the staunchest supporters of geography and never shied away from his identification as a geographer, especially in his public policy and advocacy work. He was the leading light of his generation of geographical scholars and the consummate professional. We will miss his wise counsel, his sense of humor, and most of all his all-encompassing selfless spirit and encouragement to press on.

—Members of the University of South Carolina Geography Department

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Sylvia Chant

The career of feminist development geographer Sylvia Chant was cut short on December 18, 2019 at age 60, when she died of pancreatic cancer. As reported in her obituary in The Guardian,during her career, Chant challenged the received notion that households headed by women in developing countries were automatically more likely to live in poverty than those headed by men. Chant argued that multiple household responsibilities and obligations in relation to men were the greater challenge to women’s lives and success.

Her books include Women-headed Households(1997) and Gender, Generation and Poverty(2007). Writing of her in The Guardian, colleague Cathy McIlwaine described Chant as “keen to work with other researchers[. S]he co-authored and edited 11 of her 18 books, including four that we wrote together, of which the most recent was Cities, Slums and Gender in the Global South (2016). She edited the International Handbook of Gender and Poverty (2010), whose more than 100 chapters came from 125 established and early career authors.

As a professor at the London School of Economics, Chant was known as an inspiring and generous teacher, who influenced many PhD students to work on gender and international development around the world.

Her ideas around women-headed households and wider gender inequalities helped shape the policies of international agencies such as the Commonwealth Secretariat, UN-Habitat, the International Labour Organization, UN Women, and the World Bank. Her work with the Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children contributed to the country’s final outlawing of female genital mutilation in 2015.

Born in Dundee, Chant grew up in London and earned a geography degree from King’s College, Cambridge in 1981. She attained her PhD at University College London in 1984, studying the role of women in the construction of housing in Querétaro, Mexico. McIlwaine noted, “This was among the first studies that recognised women as key actors in self-build housing in poor urban communities in countries of the global south.”

She is survived by her husband Chris Mogridge, her mother, June, and two sisters, Adrienne and Yvonne.

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Cuchlaine King

Geomorphologist Cuchlaine King died on December 17, 2019 at the age of 97. As a member of the geography department at Nottingham University since 1951, King’s studies addressed many landforms and landscapes, particularly beaches and glaciers.

At a time when scientific expeditions to remote locations were often closed to women, in 1953 she embarked on a university expedition to Iceland to study and survey glaciers. Later in the 1950s,and 1960s, she took part in the Cambridge expeditions on the Austerdalsbreen glacier in Norway and the Baffin Island, in Canada.

Cuchlaine was born in Cambridge,where she later went on to study geography at Newnham College, graduating in 1943. Cuchlaine’s publications include Beaches and Coasts (1959), Techniques in Geomorphology (1966), and Glacial and Periglacial Geomorphology (1968). She was an early proponent of “quantitative geography”, the use of numerical and statistical techniques to describe and explain landform development. In 1961, Cuchlaine became one of only two women in the founding group of academics that became the British Society for Geomorphology. In 1981 she was awarded the Linton prize from the BSG for her contributions to the subject.

Cuchlaine is survived by a niece, Jane, and three nephews, Nicholas, Timothy and John.

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Doug M. Amedeo

Doug M. Amedeo, professor emeritus of geography at the School of Natural Resources, died Dec. 4, 2019, in Lincoln.

Amedeo was a leader in environmental perception and behavioral geography, focusing his career on the human dimensions of environmental and spatial issues. He began as an associate professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1973, after serving for five years as an assistant professor at the University of California.

By 1992, he was promoted to full professor, and in 1993, he became the chair of the Department of Geography, which later was merged with the Department of Anthropology, and then the School of Natural Resources, his permanent faculty home. He served in that role for three years.

Amedeo also was a permanent member of editorial boards for the journals of “Architectural and Planning Research” and “Environment and Behavior,” and served on more than 18 university committees over the years.

During the course of his career, he published and presented more than 70 books, chapters, articles or papers and advised nearly 20 graduate students in pursuit of their doctorate degree. Even in his retirement, he continued to work with, advice and inspire students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Amedeo was born Sept. 21, 1932, in Brooklyn, New York, to Guido and Jean (Gong) Amedeo. He served in the Korean War and, in 1962, earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Wisconsin State University. He earned his master’s and doctorate degrees in geography from the University of Iowa in 1965 and 1967, respectively.

In 1977, he married Patricia Herriott, who survives him. He also is survived by his daughters, Cynthia Amedeo Nelson of Lincoln and Elizabeth Amedeo Stigleman (Marty) of Midland, Michigan.

A celebration of his life will be in spring 2020; Wyuka Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. In lieu of flowers, memorials made be made to women’s, children’s or animal charities. Condolence can be left at Wyuka.com.

Published from the School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska – Lincoln.

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Carl Lewis Johannessen

Carl Lewis Johannessen (1924–2019), a literal and figurative giant of cultural-plant geography and cultural-diffusionist studies, died at age 95, on 13 November 2019. He was Professor Emeritus and one-time head (1978–1981) of Geography at the University of Oregon, where he had been hired in 1959. Carl was a charter member of the Editorial Board of Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-distance Contacts, which I founded and edit, as well as a contributor and the dedicatee for book 6(2–4). The geographer Daniel W. Gade pointed to his contributions as a cultural diffusionist, in book 3(1–3).

Born in Santa Ana, CA, on 28 July 1924, Carl served with the Navy in the Pacific during World War II. He earned a B.A. in Wildlife Conservation and Management at the University of California, Berkeley (1950), an M.A. there in Zoology (1953)—both under A. Starker Leopold—plus a Ph.D. in Geography (1959) with Carl O. Sauer. Johannessen was one of the last living links to the “Old Man” among products of the “Berkeley School.” Another influence was the Missouri Botanical Garden botanist Edgar Anderson.

Johannessen was an inveterate library and field scholar, though one little concerned with convention. He examined human impacts on wild plants as well as domestication as a process and the histories and geographies of individual domesticates. He initially worked in the Americas and in 1999 received the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers’ Preston E. James Eminent Latin Americanist Career Award (see C.L.A.G. Yearbook 25). However, from 1985 on, turmoil in Central America led him to concentrate instead on South Asia, where horticultural similarities inspired hypotheses of pre-1492 transoceanic interinfluences. He also worked in China and in Polynesia.

Johannessen followed up on my 1978 observation concerning the depiction of a maize ear in a pre-1492 South Indian sculpture, discovering hundreds more and recognizing images of other American domesticates (confirmed by Shakti M. Gupta in 1996). During the 1980s, his presentations on this generated considerable interest. At a 1988 conference, Carl met the Brigham Young University anthropologist John L. Sorenson, which led to a collaborative encyclopedic collection of data demonstrating the previously unimagined magnitude of the pre-Columbian interhemispheric exchange of organisms. World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492 represents a particular milestone in the study of pre-Columbian human mobility. It was self-published, commercial presses having considered the esoteric content to be unsalable.

In 1973, Carl had encountered the Asian-looking black-boned, black-fleshed chicken (“BBC”), in Guatemala, and he and his hiree May Fogg discovered that Native American (but not Mestizo or Euroamerican) keeping of this strain was widespread, as were associated medicinal usages closely reminiscent of practices in China.

In 2016,Johannessen published a more-popular book on early international biological transfers: Pre-Columbian Sailors Changed World History (like the 2013 volume, reviewed in 2019 by Charles F. Gritzner, in The AAG Review of Books 7). The ever-game 94-year-old Johannessen’s last conference presentation was delivered in Sitka, in 2018.

Carl was also concerned with practical applications concerning cultivated plants and engaged in plant-breeding experiments on his farm.

—

Stephen C. Jett

University of California, Davis

333 Court St., NE

Abingdon, VA 24210-2921

scjett@hotmail.com

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Lester Rowntree

Geographer Lester Rowntree was most at home exploring landscapes, to both appreciate and protect their cultural and ecological diversity. As a gifted educator, he enthusiastically shared what he learned and inspired his students to engage with the natural world. Les (the name he preferred) was an environmental geographer by training who loved nothing more than to walk in the oak woodlands, sail across the San Francisco Bay, or climb in the Sierra Nevada or the Cascades for the sheer joy of it. He made his impact on the disciplines of geography and environmental studies through teaching at San José State University, writing textbooks, scholarly articles on the cultural landscape, and a lifetime of research and activism working with California’s natural environment. He was a superb mentor for geographers of any age, making time for long discussions, careful listening, and wise advice. Les passed away on August 30th in his Berkeley home after a long struggle with cancer. He was 80 years old.

As a scholar Les was most known for a series of important essays on cultural landscape interpretation. He and his wife, archaeologist Meg Conkey, co-authored an influential paper in 1980 titled “Symbolism and the Cultural Landscape” that appeared in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Another influential piece was the 1996 essay “The Cultural Landscape Concept in American Human Geography” which appeared in Concepts in Human Geography edited by Carville Earle, Kent Mathewson, and Martin Kenzer. He also was a prolific textbook author. In the 1980s he joined geographer Terry Jordan to co-author The Human Mosaic: A Thematic Introduction to Cultural Geography, a project he worked on for seven editions. He then collaborated with Martin Lewis, Marie Price and William Wyckoff for over 20 years on two world regional geography books, Diversity Amid Globalization: World Regions, Environment, Development (seven editions) and Globalization and Diversity: Geography of a Changing World (six editions). The books introduced a thematic structure for world regions while conceptually linking areas through globalization processes. The most recent edition of Globalization and Diversity was published in 2019. The best part about working with Les on these books was the way he approached it, with joy, high energy, purposefulness, and a dash of irreverence.

Although he wrote about the world, Lester Bradford Rowntree was a native Californian who cared deeply about his home. Born by the Pacific Ocean in Carmel on December 22, 1938, he spent his youth in what he called a “quaint village of artists, bohemians, and other interesting folk”. In the post-war years his parents moved to Berkeley, where his father was a member of the Berkeley Fire Department. Les attended school there, graduated from Berkeley High School, and was elected class president. His college years were restless as he struggled to find a subject that would keep his attention as much as the mountains and the sea, and toward the end he’d fondly recollect summers spent in fire lookouts and hanging out with climbers at the fabled Camp 4, near Yosemite Falls. He took time off, served in the US Army, and was eventually stationed in Germany where he wrote for Stars & Stripes. His time in Europe introduced him to the Alps, a place that he returned to for his doctoral research. After being honorably discharged from the army as a conscientious objector, he eventually returned to California and San José State University where he earned a BA in Geography in 1966. He then went to the University of Oregon where he earned his MA (1970) and PhD (1971) studying the human ecology of mountain systems.

With a PhD in hand, he returned to San José State University (SJSU) to teach. For over 30 years he taught in the Departments of Geography and Environmental Studies, introducing thousands of students to his passion for environmental geography and landscape interpretation, and steering a long list of students to graduate studies. While at SJSU he chaired the Department of Environmental Studies from 1995-2005. That department, established in 1970, was one of the first of its kind in the country. He retired from SJSU as Professor Emeritus in 2005 to focus on his writing, activism and love of the outdoors. He held Visiting Scholar and Research Associate appointments at the University of California, Berkeley since 2005.

Perhaps the most personal scholarly project of his career was Hardy Californians: A Woman’s Life with Native Plants, which was published in 2006 by the University of California Press. A monograph by the same title was first published in 1936 by (Gertrude) Lester Rowntree, Les’s grandmother, with whom he shared the identical name. His grandmother lived in the Carmel Highlands and was a pioneering expert on California’s native flora. Les took enormous pride in re-introducing his grandmother’s path-breaking work to a new generation of ecologists and botanists. He also enjoyed writing popular environmental essays for Bay Nature. Two excellent examples of the teacher/scholar writing to a broader audience are: “When it Rains it Pours: Atmospheric Rivers and Drought”; and “Forged by Fire: Lightning and Landscape at Big Sur” in which he returns to his lifelong interest in the impact of fire on the landscape.

Even though teaching required a long commute to San José, Les eventually returned to the Berkeley Hills to live in 1987 with his wife Meg Conkey, who at that time was appointed to the Department of Anthropology as a Professor of Archeology at UC Berkeley. Their home was regularly filled with visiting scholars, friends and family. Summers often included research, especially at Meg’s field site in the Dordogne, north of the French Pyrénées, with frequent travel to a family summer home in Maine. Les and Meg also shared a devotion to Cal sports and regularly attended women’s basketball and men’s football games. Les passed away in his home with a view of the ‘hardy Californian’ native plants that filled their garden. He is survived by his wife Meg, daughters Erika and Alicechandra, three grandchildren, and his brother Rowan and sister Pat. There are plans for a memorial in November.

Marie Price and Paul F. Starrs

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John Webb

John Webb was born on 29 July 1926 in Staines, England, growing up west of London when World War II broke out. He joined the Royal Air Force during the war, but poor eyesight kept him from flying. Instead, he worked with RAF Intelligence drawing maps of Europe to be used for Allied bombing missions. After the war, he attended the University of St. Andrews, where he earned three master’s degrees in four years and met his first wife, Anne (Nancy) Smillie, an American.

Webb moved to the U.S. with Nancy in 1952, continuing his studies as a doctoral student in the Department of Geography at the University of Minnesota. He taught one year at the University of Maryland (1954-55) and returned to Minnesota an instructor (1955-58) while completing his doctorate with Jan Broek. After receiving his Ph.D. (1958) he taught in the Minnesota department, later serving administrative roles including associate dean for Social Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts (1969-73).

In 1979 Webb married Judith Holtan. They moved to Albany, New York, as he took the position of professor of geography and dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the State University of New York (SUNY). He served in those positions until his retirement (1997).

His most notable publication (with Jan Broek) was A Geography of Mankind (1968), a pioneering college text organized by themes such as language, government, religion and economy as they appeared across the world. The structure of the text was a departure from the prevailing approach, which examined the map of the human world as a mosaic of regions and culture realms.

The year before Webb died, while he and his daughter Jennifer traveled to England, she learned that when he left RAF service he had absconded with some maps as keepsakes, including one, written in German and dated November 1940, which had been recovered by the Allies. It was a Nazi aerial map of Weybridge, Webb’s hometown and home to an important airfield and factory. The Germans had dropped some 500 bombs on the city over the course of the war. Although the Brits disguised and camouflaged the factory when war broke out, it could be seen clearly on the Nazi map.

The site of the former Weybridge airfield now has a museum where John and Jennifer donated the map some 78 years after it was created. It remains on display there. She recalled: “It was really neat because all the volunteers at the museum came and crowded around him and wanted to talk about it. … It gave him some closure,” she said.

Following retirement from SUNY Albany, John and Judith eventually settled in St. Cloud, MN, where he died on 18 August 2019 at the age of 93. He was survived by his wife Judith, his daughter, Jennifer Fusaro and son John Webb.

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Claire Dwyer

It is a very great sadness to bring news of the death of our dear friend and colleague, Claire Dwyer. She was diagnosed with a rare and serious form of cancer last year, and died peacefully on Sunday afternoon (14th July). She will be missed by so many of us in the geographical community and beyond.

Claire spent most of her academic career at University College London, where she undertook her PhD research on the identities of young British Muslim women. She joined the Departmental academic staff as a lecturer in 1995. However, she was also an international figure – some of the strongest influences on her ideas and interests were formed during her Masters course at Syracuse, which followed her undergraduate degree at Oxford. She had formal visiting fellowships at York University in Toronto, at UBC in Vancouver, at Uppsala and Utrecht universities, and was a regular speaker at events in the USA and Singapore.

Claire’s research made a vital contribution to social geography. Her early focus on gender, religion and ethnicity remained at the core of that contribution, but her work developed in new and distinctive directions, on transnational consumption in explorations of diasporic South Asian fashion, on innovation in qualitative methods, and in the critical analysis of the growth of faith schools in the UK. Throughout her career, her critical feminism underpinned her thinking and her approach. She was one of the co-authors of Geographies of New Femininities in 1999, and was active in the growth and success of the RGS-IBG Gender and Feminist Geography Research Group, serving on its committee for fifteen years.

Claire’s most recent research on the creativities of suburban faith communities played to her strengths. She had a real gift for putting people at their ease, and brought together different publics with artists and other creative professionals in a series of genuinely participatory projects. She was also a great leader of a diverse project team with many different skills and talents. The work drew upon both her academic expertise, but also her religious faith – she had a brilliant capacity to listen and understand the beliefs, practices and creativities of people with different faiths, an empathy that was generous but also critical and questioning.

Claire’s career was also marked by a strong commitment to teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels alike. She cared deeply about her students, leading courses in social geography and in migration and transnationalism, and was always in great demand as a dissertation supervisor. She founded and convened a successful Masters programme in Global Migration, linked to the Migration Research Unit, of which she was co-director. She was committed to the development of new generations of scholars in social geography, particularly in issues of migration, diaspora, identity, gender and religion. She had an extraordinary record of PhD supervision, supervising over 20 projects to completion. Many of these PhD students are now significant academics in their own right. Even now, there are 10 further projects in progress at UCL where Claire was either first or second supervisor. The loss of her drive and direction of new scholars is a loss not only to UCL, but also to the wider discipline.

Claire’s academic achievements are impressive, but what has been re-emphasized to us all in the short time since she died is how much she meant to people. She combined intelligence with great generosity, a willingness to put others before herself, and an ability to bring out the best in people. Her sound judgment, collegiality and extensive experience meant that she was always a reliable, wise and empathetic colleague to turn to for advice. She was a passionate and critical academic always engaged in the latest work and debates, but also had a life beyond, and a refreshing sense of wider priorities. Her family was at the centre of her life, and particularly she had great love and pride for her two sons. Our thoughts and for many of us, our prayers, are with them, her husband Paul, and her family.

Claire was awarded a Chair at UCL in 2018, and she was sad that illness prevented her from giving her inaugural and celebrating her career with colleagues and friends. We will now celebrate those achievements in different ways. We are hoping to arrange events in the near future to honour her life and work.

You can post tributes and memories of Claire on the UCL website: www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/claire-dwyer-condolences-memories.

Ben Page, Geography, University College London.

David Gilbert, Geography, Royal Holloway University of London.

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Michael Bradford

It is with sadness that the AAG notes the passing of Professor Michael Bradford on July 12, 2019 at the age of 74 years old. He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Sheila Kaplan, of Rockford, Illinois.

Born in Surrey, Michael became interested in geography throughout grammar school, an interest which continued while he attended Cambridge University in the 1960s. Michael enjoyed a long career at Manchester University where he moved in 1971 following post doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. At Manchester his career led him to become a professor, Undergraduate Dean from 1994 -1996, and Head of Department from 1996 – 2000. He then served as Pro-Vice Chancellor from 2001-2005 and then as Associate Vice President in 2006.

Professor Bradford was deeply committed to geography education and served as president of the Geographical Association from 1999-2000. His love of teaching also shows through his receipt of awards such as a Distinguished Achievement Medal – Teacher of the Year 2005, a National Teaching Fellowship in 2006 from the Higher Education Teaching Council for England, and the Taylor and Francis Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Geography and Higher Education from the Royal Geographical Society in 2008.

An avid environmentalist, Michael’s research was concerned with urban policy, inequality, and social justice. Children’s geography and places of play held a particular interest for Michael. He also collaborated with lifelong friend Ashley Kent on two books: Human Geographies: Theories and their Applications (1977) and Understanding Human Geography: People and their Changing Environments (1993).

A celebration of life for Michael will be held from 1:30 – 4:30 PM on Saturday, 19th October 2019 at University Place, 126 Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL. Please contact Sheila for more information.

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Lawrence Estaville

It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform each of you that Dr. Lawrence Estaville, founding member of the Ethnic Geography Specialty Group, had died.

Lawrence served in the academy as a professor, scholar, and administrator for more than 40 years with positions in Wisconsin, California, South Carolina, and Texas. During his career, Lawrence was a prolific scholar, steadfast mentor and educator, and an effective administrator. While in no way inclusive, I would like to highlight some of Lawrence’s many accomplishments during his unparalleled career and life. Lawrence led the establishment of three PhD programs at Texas State University and aided in the founding of the James and Marilyn Lovell Center for Environmental Geography and Hazards Research and the Gilbert M. Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education. He published 10 books (with an additional co-authored monograph forthcoming), 36 peer-reviewed articles, 19 peer-reviewed book chapters, and presented 92 conference papers. An effective fundraiser, Lawrence raised over $6-million in grants and raised funds to support graduate students and conferences. He worked closely with the Race, Ethnicity, and Place Conferences and with the conference creator and his dear friend Dr. John Frazier.

Above all, Lawrence would tell you that his passion was teaching. He taught nearly 40 courses during his career and was a steadfast advocate for students. Diversity of students and ideas was a cornerstone of his teaching. Lawrence’s love of cinema led him to include assignments involving important films in several of his undergraduate courses. He was often recognized as a favorite professor by both undergraduate and graduate students. He advised three doctoral students and several masters students to the successful completion of their degrees. As one of those doctoral students, I will share that Lawrence’s mentorship did not end at the culmination of my graduate degree but rather turned into a life-long duty for him.

Lawrence was an award-winning professor with recognition at the highest level. I highlight a few here. Lawrence was a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1985 and the Distinguished Mentor Award in 2012 from the National Council for Geographic Education. He was honored in 2011 with the Outstanding Scholarship and Service Award from the Business Geography Specialty Group – a group that he led in establishing. From our Ethnic Geography Specialty Group, Lawrence was the recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award in 2015 and the Distinguished Ethnic Geographer Career Award in 2010. He received the Enhancing Diversity Award from the American Association of Geographers in 2016. Most recently, on November 16, 2018, Lawrence was the recipient of the highest faculty honor and title bestowed by the Texas State University System – Regents’ Professor.

I will add that one of the things that Lawrence was most proud of, especially toward the end of his career, was his service to the National Marrow Donor Program and his establishment (with Yvonne Ybarra and Angelika Wahl) of the Texas State Cancer Advocacy Movement for Colleges and Outreach (CAMCO). The efforts of this state-wide alliance resulted in tens of thousands of student marrow donors and, most importantly, the saving of over 50 lives through marrow matches – including several children. He shared privately with me years ago, after his successful fight with leukemia, that he felt that he just had to do something if he “beat this thing,” especially after seeing what he saw at M.D. Anderson. He did.

These few paragraphs only scratch the surface of Lawrence Estaville’s vast career accomplishments. Lawrence was very private about his valiant fights with cancer.

On Wednesday, December 5, 2018, Lawrence was honored with a Texas State University presidential reception for his Regents’ Professor distinction in San Marcos, Texas. Although he was a little thinner and in a wheel chair, Lawrence was vibrant and excited to speak to all who came to congratulate him. His contagious, deep laughter could be heard throughout the room as he reminisced and joked with friends and colleagues. I remember that he displayed his Regents’ Professor medallion proudly over his suit jacket adjusting it for pictures. He would later tell me that he was so very thankful for the experience and for all his friends near and far. He said that the award was “the cherry on top” of what he said was a great life and career.

I visited him again a few days later in his home. Lawrence, in characteristic fashion, wanted to talk more about me, my family, and our friends than himself. Always the hosts, the Estaville’s had refreshments out for me. When I commented on not needing to have refreshments out he said, “Oh Edris, that is my beautiful wife Sandra who put those out.” I said, “You are one lucky man.” He replied, “You’re telling me.” Lawrence’s deepest love and admiration for his wife, Sandra, remains an example to us all.

A professor and educator until the end, Lawrence was afraid that he would not be able to complete his Ethnic Geography course this semester and see his students’ presentations. Angelika Wahl, his dear friend and colleague from the department at Texas State suggested that he could Skype-in to see and grade the final presentations which excited Lawrence greatly. With the assistance of Yongmei Lu, TX State Geography Department Chair and cherished friend, Lawrence was able to finish his course this semester – a duty he would tell me that he felt he owed his students… to finish what he started. He was very thankful for that.

In one of our conversations, Lawrence did lament that there would be many that he would not be able to say goodbye to personally and he hoped that everyone understood. I, of course, reassured him that all would. He shared with me that he felt that he had lived a wonderful life and was thankful for every moment of it.

Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.), professor, scholar, mentor, colleague, and friend Dr. Lawrence Estaville passed away on the morning of December 20, 2018 with his loving wife Sandra by his side. He was 74 years old. Lawrence is survived by his wife Sandra and his daughter Deborah. He is survived by dozens of colleagues and friends who he collaborated with over his long career. Finally, Dr. Lawrence Estaville is survived by thousands of students who are better for their time spent with him – in the classroom and beyond.

Per Lawrence’s wishes, there will not be a funeral. The family has asked in lieu of flowers, to consider contributing to the many scholarships he supported/funded at Texas State (geography specific scholarship information: https://donate.txstate.edu/givingsearch) or to the Be the Match Foundation (https://bethematch.org/support-the-cause/donate-financially/). Those who wish may also consider donating to the EGSG’s newly established student travel fund in Lawrence’s memory (If you wish to donate to the EGSG student travel fund please contact me at emontalvo@cameron.edu).

As we take the time to remember Lawrence in the next few months and at the AAG meeting in Washington D.C., I know that our friend and colleague wouldn’t want us to spend too long mourning him. Instead, I believe that Lawrence would want us to continue to educate and serve students and each other to the best of our ability. He did.

— Edris J. Montalvo Jr., Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Geography

Department of Social Sciences

Cameron University

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