C. Nicholas Raphael

C. Nicholas Raphael died of a heart attack February 21, 2004. He was born September 3, 1937 in Detroit, MI, the son of R. George and Angela Raphael. Nick graduated from the Upper Canada College Preparatory School in Toronto, Canada, earned his undergraduate degree from Wayne State University, his master’s from Eastern Michigan University (EMU), and his Ph.D. in coastal geomorphology from Louisiana State University (LSU). He received full support from the National Academy of Sciences for his doctoral research in Greece. After his fourteen months of field research he returned to LSU to complete his dissertation.

He joined the faculty at EMU in 1967, where he remained as a full professor in the department of geography and geology until his death. During his career Nick served as a guest professor at Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico, Coventry College of Education in England, the University of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, the College of Education in Shanghai and Earth University in Costa Rica. He also served as consultant to the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Nick was an active member of Gamma Theta Upsilon (GTU), the International Geographical Honor Society, and served as the national editor of the GTU Journal, and was also a member of the Association of American Geographers, Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society, the Michigan Academy of Science and the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.

Memorial contributions in Nick’s memory may be made to the Hogar Rafael Orphanage in Guatemala. Checks may be written to St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, 3109 Scio Church Rd., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103. Please state that the check is in memory of Nicholas Raphael.

C. Nicholas Raphael (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(5): 19.

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Tom McKnight

Tom McKnight died peacefully of kidney problems on February 16, 2004.

Shortly after his 75^th birthday, he underwent hip replacement and during the rehabilitation process developed the kidney problems that lead to his death.

McKnight earned a bachelor of arts degree in geology at Southern Methodist in 1949, a master’s in geography at Colorado in 1951, and a Ph.D. in geography and meteorology at Wisconsin in 1955. He began a distinguished teaching and writing career at UCLA in 1956. He retired there in 1993, having gone from Assistant Professor to Full Professor, and was Professor Emeritus at the time of his death. He played many roles at UCLA in those thirty-seven years, and served as departmental Chair from 1978-83.

It was during his term as Chair that he initiated an outreach effort to community college teachers in Southern California. Periodic meetings of varied teachers led to a creative and stimulating interaction between faculty in different academic settings. The seeds of the national Geographic Alliance movement were planted in this McKnight-UCLA innovation. The National Geographic Society diffused this extraordinarily popular concept of teachers from K-12 through to graduate level all working together in the promotion of increased geographic interest, both in education and public awareness.

McKnight’s breadth of belief in geography is shown in his love of the concept of “landscape appreciation” which he defined as “an understanding of everything that one can see, hear, and smell—both actually and vicariously—in humankind’s zone of living on the earth.” During the last decade of his life, McKnight and his wife, geographer Joan Clemons, carried these interests to all corners of the world, and Tom wrote of the wonders of such geography in a number of evocative texts and numerous articles. Although Australia received the lion’s share of McKnight’s foreign fieldwork and writing, his global interests were catholic and touched all continents except Antarctica.

Anyone wishing to remember Tom McKnight in a more formal way is encouraged to send contributions to Friends of Geography (FOG) c/o Department of Geography, 1255 Bunche Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1524.

Tom McKnight (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(5): 19.

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Gustavo Antonini

Gustavo “Gus” Antonini of Gainesville, Florida, died February 7, 2004 at the age of sixty-six. Born in New York, Antonini came to Gainesville in 1969 and taught at the University of Florida for thirty years. He joined the AAG in 1964.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in geology and geography, a master’s degree in geography and coastal geomorphology, and his Ph.D. in geography from Columbia University.

At the University of Florida (UF), he worked at the Center for Latin American Studies and the geography department, and also worked with the Florida Sea Grant. His early work centered on the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and his later work focused on waterway management.

Antonini created the Florida Sea Grant’s nationally recognized Boating and Waterway Management Program, which was named the top outreach effort among the nation’s thirty Sea Grant programs in 2003. In 2000, the program earned a leadership award from the Governor’s Council for Sustainable Florida.

After retirement from UF, Antonini opened a consulting firm, remaining active in Sea Grant’s waterways management program.

Gustavo Antonini (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(5): 19

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Bob Huke

Our friend and colleague, Bob Huke, passed away on January 17, 2004. Born March 3, 1925, Bob was a devoted and beloved geographer and friend of Dartmouth. He joined the AAG in 1949.

Huke earned his undergraduate from Dartmouth in 1948. After getting his Ph.D. in geography from Syracuse in 1953, he started teaching at Dartmouth immediately. In 1990 Bob retired and became an active emeritus professor. He was also a veteran and served honorably in the Marine Corps, where he received the Purple Heart after being wounded in Okinawa during WWII.

Bob enriched the lives of many through his teaching, research, and his involvement with the AAG. He served on numerous AAG committees at both the national level and as part of the New England St. Lawrence Valley division and he was a focal component of the Asia Specialty Group. Bob’s research interests focused primarily on Southeast Asia, and he was a specialist in agricultural and population geography. Bob was also extremely active in the Retired Geographers Specialty Group and served as their secretary-treasurer in 1999 and led hugely successful trips of the Retired Geographers Organization to Myanmar and Vietnam.

He had a long-term collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Banos, Philippines. Bob wrote a series of key papers in the 1970s on the Green Revolution, and he had an international reputation for his work on the geography of food and hunger, the Green Revolution, and Southeast Asia. He published extensively and he was the chief investigator on projects funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, NASA, and the Fulbright Foundation.

To memorialize Bob’s ardent field scholarship and devoted undergraduate teaching, the department is establishing a research travel fund. We have numerous students doing senior honors theses every year, with many of them travelling overseas (as Bob would love). Donations may be made out to: Bob Huke Student Research Award, and mailed to: Kelly White, Department of Geography, 6017 Fairchild, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH 03755.

Bob Huke (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(3): 11.

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Anastasia Van Burkalow

92, of Wantage, New Jersey, formerly of New York City, died January 14, 2004. Professor Van Burkalow had a long and distinguished record of service at the department of geography at Hunter College. She became an AAG member in 1948.

Anastasia Van Burkalow (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(3): 11.

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Ann Hull

An AAG member since January 1, 1947, Ann Hull died in December of 2003.

Hull earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Washington in 1945, and her master’s from Syracuse University in 1948.

Ann Hull (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(3): 11.

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John Lounsbury

John F. Lounsbury, born in Perham, Minnesota, passed away on December 26, 2003, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at the age of eighty-five.

John received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Illinois, and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University (1951). He began his career at Antioch College, and later taught at Eastern Michigan University. John joined Arizona State University as chair in 1969 and remained in that position until 1977. He remained in the department until retiring at age sixty-eight, in 1987.

During his tenure at Arizona State, Lounsbury was instrumental in establishing a Ph.D. program in 1972 and through his sociable personality did a great deal to bring harmony to a fractionalized department.

He authored or co-authored several books, chapters, and many journal articles in areas including physical geography, economic geography, planning, agricultural geography, gaming, and land use policy.

John’s greatest contribution to the discipline, however, was as a mediator and consensus builder. This is reflected in his various roles as director of projects including the “Spatial Analysis of Land Use Project,” the “Environment-based Education Project,” and the “Commission on College Geography.” In the period 1957-1980 he was personally engaged in, or supervised, a series of grants from various sources that totaled in excess of $2,700,000.

His duty as an officer during World War II was defining experience. He was among the first to land on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Badly wounded, for the rest of his life he walked with a limp. He received numerous awards and medals for his military service.

Lounsbury had an easy teaching style, and was famous for injecting humor and anecdotal stories in his lectures. An excellent mentor, he guided several M.A. students and four Ph.D. students.

A student scholarship fund was established in John’s name at Arizona State University. To contribute to this fund, send a check made out to “A.S.U. Foundation-Lounsbury Travel Fund,” and mail to the ASU Geography Department, Tempe, AZ 85287-0104.

John Lounsbury (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(2): 17.

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Chauncy Harris

A former president of the AAG, Chauncy Dennison Harris, was at the time of his death on December 26, 2003 the Samuel N. Harper Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago. Awarded a Rhodes scholarship in 1934, he studied geography at Oxford and the London School of Economics and then completed his training at the University of Chicago where he received the Ph.D. degree in 1940. His dissertation study of Salt Lake City was an early example of urban as opposed to rural or environmental focus in American geography. After wartime service in the Department of State and OSS, Professor Harris returned to the University of Chicago where he remained for the rest of his career. His early publications on urban functions and industrial location in the United States resulted in prompt recognition by the geographical profession and rapid promotion at the University of Chicago. While still in military service in Washington, he began to study Russian and developed what would be a life-long interest in the Soviet Union. The extraordinarily rapid urbanization of the USSR was the focus of many articles and his much acclaimed book “Cities of the Soviet Union,” published in 1970. The ethnic complexity of the Soviet realm was an additional major subject of investigation. Soon recognized as a serious and objective scholar, he was well received during his many trips to the USSR and made a persistent effort to bring the work of Soviet geographers to the attention of Western colleagues. Together with Theodore Shabad of the New York Times he played a key role in launching and writing for the journal “Soviet Geography: Review and Translation.” He also found time to pursue an interest in bibliography and produced reference works of enduring value.

In addition to his research and teaching, professor Harris served for several years as Secretary-General of the International Geographical Union, a position that permitted him to make good use of his ability to speak French, German, and Russian. At the University of Chicago he served not only as a professor but also as Dean of its Social Sciences Division, Director of its program of international study, and Vice President for Academic Resources. After reaching mandatory retirement age in 1984, he continued to be active in research and wrote articles on German unification and the ethnic composition of Eastern Europe and the successor states of the former Soviet Union.

Professor Harris received many tributes during his long and productive career, including several honorary degrees, membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and medals from the American Geographical Society, Royal Geographical Society, and Berlin Geographical Society. With his natural dignity, four language fluency, and unfailing courtesy, Chauncy Harris acted in many ways as a diplomat as well as a scholar.

Chancy Dennison Harris (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(2): 17.

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George Beatty

George F. Beatty, Professor Emeritus, Department of Geography, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana died on December 3, 2003. He was born in Cowan, Indiana on June 9, 1918. Beatty received his B.S. from Ball State University in 1949 and M.S. and Ph.D. from University of Illinois in 1951 and 1958 respectively. From 1943-54 he worked at the Department of Geography at Calcutta University, India on a Fulbright research grant. Before coming to Ball State, George worked for the University of Tennessee at Martin and Northern Illinois University. He joined Ball State in 1958 and retired in 1983.

George F Beatty (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(2): 18

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Raj Mathur

Raj Bahadur Mathur was born February 1,1936 in Hasanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. He died on December 1, 2003 in Orange, California. Mathur earned his bachelors degree in geography at Camp College in Delhi and a master’s in geography and economics from Punjab University, Camp College, Delhi. He came to the United States in 1966 and at the University of Minnesota he earned a master’s degree in economics and in 1973 completed his Ph.D. in geography. Through his graduate study and early career, he was involved in the creation of the Historical Atlas of South Asia, eventually published in 1978.

He taught at California State University, Northridge before joining HDR Ecosciences in 1977 as and economic geographer. In 1983, Mathur joined Tetratech Inc., where he later became vice president, and in retirement, a consultant.

Raj Mathur (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(3): 11.

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