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.
A native of West Lafayette, Ohio, Ross earned his master’s degree in geography from Boston University. During WWII, he served in the Army in Algeria, Sicily, and Italy.
After returning from his war service, Ross worked in the intelligence division of the Army and was a project officer for an Army and Cornell University study on insect-transmitted disease.
Ross moved to Washington, DC in 1949, and traveled between DC and Connecticut, where he taught physical, regional and cultural geography at Southern Connecticut State University. In early 1970s, he retired.
Ross joined the AAG in 1947.
Carl W. Ross (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(5): 19.
Tom McKnight died peacefully of kidney problems on February 16, 2004.
Shortly after his 75th 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.
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.
