Burke Vanderhill

Burke Gordon Vanderhill died on May 24, 2010. He was born in La Porte, Indiana, on January 15, 1920, and grew up in Bellaire, Michigan where his father was a telegrapher and station agent for the Pere Marquette Railroad, later the Chesapeake and Ohio, inspiring Burke’s lifelong interest in trains and railroads as well as his love of geography. Vanderhill attended Kalamazoo College, Michigan State University (B.S, with Honors), the University of Nebraska (M.A.), and received his PhD in Geography from the University of Michigan where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 he enlisted in the United States Army Air Force. During 1942-45, he served in the 8th Air Force near Ipswich, East Anglia, England. Upon returning to the U.S., Burke used the GI Bill to complete his degrees. He came to Tallahassee in 1950 to join the Florida State University Geography Department. Vanderhill retired in 1995 after 45 years of service to the university community. His research interests varied, but his primary focus was on the northern fringe of agricultural settlement in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and later Alaska, areas he returned to many times camping with his family.

Burke Gordon Vanderhill (Necrology). 2010. AAG Newsletter 45(10): 22.

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Bruce C. Ogilvie

Bruce Ogilvie, a former longtime employee at Rand McNally in Skokie, Illinois, and chief editor of some of its best known publications, died of natural causes on Tuesday, May 11, 2010, at the age of 94. Born in Avon, New York, Ogilvie received undergraduate degrees from the University of Maine in Farmington (1935) and Rhode Island College (1938). He was a graduate student at Clark University when World War II broke out and in 1942 joined the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, D.C. as a cartographer. He later received a direct commission in the U.S. Navy Reserve, serving as a Line Officer Afloat in the North Atlantic Theater and with the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office in Washington, D.C. He later worked for the national mapping division of the U.S. Geological Survey in the Department of the Interior. Ogilvie received his master’s degree in 1948 and his PhD from Clark University in 1956. During his two decades with Rand McNally, Ogilvie was chief editor and coordinator for The Time-Life Atlas, The International Atlas, and The Children’s World Atlas. Known simply as “the geographer” at the map-making giant, he brought to creation thousands of maps, globes and atlases. Ogilvie had recently finished an autobiography about his service in the Navy. The book, Getting the Cargo Through: The U.S. Navy Armed Guard on Merchant Ships in World War II, is scheduled to be published this summer. Ogilvie resigned his Navy commission in 1955 as a lieutenant senior grade and returned to Clark University to complete his PhD. During various years from 1947 until 1987, Ogilvie taught at the University of Georgia (Athens), Chico State College (California), the University of Chicago, George Mason University, and Mary Washington University. In 1978, he became Supervisory Geographer, National Mapping Division, U.S. Geological Survey, before retiring in 1986.

Bruce C. Ogilvie (Necrology). AAG Newsletter 45(7): 15.

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Edwin H. Hammond

Ed Hammond, age 91, passed away in April. Born on January 8, 1919 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he was raised in Columbia, Missouri near the campus of the University of Missouri, where his father was a Professor of Physics. He entered the University of Missouri in 1935 and graduated with a degree in geography in 1939. Hammond was pursuing graduate study at the University of California, Berkeley when Pearl Harbor came under attack on December 7, 1941. Overtaken by world events, Hammond accepted a position in Washington, D.C., as a geographer in the Office of Strategic Services, where he participated in intelligence and mapping exercises that preceded U.S. and allied military activities in both the European and Pacific theaters of war. In November 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve and was trained in 1943 at the U.S. Naval Academy as a meteorologist for the Navy. In July 1944, Hammond began service as an Aerology Officer, Division Officer, and Watch Officer on the seaplane tender U.S.S. St. George, “mothership” to a squadron of 15 seaplane reconnaissance bombers supporting the Pacific Fleet. His ship endured attacks by Japanese fighter planes, torpedo bombers, and kamikazes, one of which hit the St. George. Hammond flew combat area reconnaissance missions as weather and intelligence analyst for sea/ air operations, for which he was awarded the Naval Air Medal. His missions included flights over Nagasaki and Hiroshima within days after the dropping of the atomic bombs. On returning to civilian life, Hammond resumed studies and teaching at UC Berkeley, where he completed his doctoral dissertation in physical geography. His career in university teaching and research subsequently took him to University of Nebraska (Lincoln) from 1948-49, the University of Wisconsin (Madison) from 1949-1964, Syracuse University from 1964-1970, and the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) in 1970, where he remained until his retirement in 1987. At Wisconsin, Hammond was co-author of major revised editions of a leading college geography textbook, published numerous maps, and served on the editorial board of the Britannica Atlas. At UT, he served for six years as Chair of the Geography Department, assisting in its development and growth. Hammond was known to be a passionate teacher of undergraduate and graduate students.

Edwin H. Hammond (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 45(6): 18.

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Paul Dean Simkins

 

Paul Dean Simkins passed away on February 9, 2010 at the age of 82.

Simkins was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, on October 1, 1927. He graduated from the University of Missouri at Columbia with a B.A. in 1951 and a Master of Arts in Geography in 1954. He completed his PhD in 1961 at the University of Wisconsin.

Simkins spent his professional career as professor of geography at Pennsylvania State University. His specialties included Latin America, migration, and population. Simkins was a member of the Pennsylvania Geographical Society and received a distinguished teaching award in 1990. He was a longtime volunteer with the American Association of University Women, as well as a driver for the State College Area Meals-on-Wheels. He was an avid wild flower enthusiast and photographer and was on the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Native Plant Society. He received the outstanding teacher award from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences in 1974.

Paul Dean Simkins (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 45(5): 15.

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Alan D. MacPherson

Alan MacPherson, Professor of Geography at the State University of New York at Buffalo, died recently at the age of 51. He had served as Chair of the Department of Geography from 2001-2007. He was also Director of SUNy-buffalo’s Canada-United States Trade Center (CUSTAC). MacPherson was born and raised in Inverness, Scotland. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geography from the University of Dundee in the United Kingdom in 1979, and a master’s degree in planning from Edinburgh College of Art in 1981. In 1982, he earned a master’s degree in geography from the University of Toronto, where he also earned his doctorate in 1988. MacPherson’s principal research interests concerned the relationship between technological innovation and regional economic development, with special emphasis on export development and Canada-U.S. trade. His teaching included undergraduate and graduate courses in international business and economic geography. He became an Associate Professor at SUNy-buffalo in 1988.

Alan D. MacPherson (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 44(7): 19.

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Glen Elder

Glen Elder, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Vermont, died recently at the age of 42 after collapsing while jogging near his Burlington home. A political geographer, he was known for his rigorous, critical, and innovative work on queer space, heteronormativity, masculinities, race, bodies, and borders in the post-9/11 context. Elder earned undergraduate degrees in both Geography and English at the University of Witwatersrand in his home country of South Africa. He completed his MA (1992) and PhD (1995) at Clark University. Elder was appointed as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Vermont in 1995, Assistant Professor in 1998, and achieved tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in 2002. He was in the process of preparing his dossier for promotion to full Professor at the time of his death. Elder had served on an interim basis as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences since 2008 and had been scheduled to begin that role on a permanent basis on July 1. He was also past chair of the Department of Geography at UVM (2005-08). A well-known and respected teacher at the University of Vermont, Elder received a kroepsch Maurice Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2004 and the Dean’s Lecture Award for outstanding Teaching and Scholarship in 2005. known for his commitment to confronting issues of marginalization and uneven power relations in the geography of sex, race, and place, he taught classes in African regional geography, political geography, feminist geography, and sexuality and space. Elder’s publications include Hostels, Sexuality and the Apartheid Legacy: Malevolent Geographies (ohio University Press, 2003) and more than a dozen other articles and book chapters.

Glen Elder (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 44(8) 20.

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Leslie Curry

Leslie Curry, Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Toronto, died on January 12, 2009, at the age of 86.

Curry was born and raised in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. He volunteered for the Royal Navy at age 18 and joined the 14th Destroyer Flotilla as a radar mechanic during World War II. Following the war, Curry graduated from Kings College at the University of Durham. In 1951, he received a master’s degree in geography from Johns Hopkins University while a Fulbright Scholar. He worked as an economist at the United Nations and then at Charles Warren Thornthwaite’s Laboratory of Climatology in Seabrook, New Jersey. Curry received his doctorate in geography from the University of Auckland in New Zealand in 1959 and later taught at the University of Washington, the University of Maryland, and Arizona State University before moving to the University of Toronto, where he spent 21 years before retiring in 1985.

As a theoretician, Les Curry was a modeler, using stochastic analysis to delve deeply into processes, especially economic, that produce the patterns and flows across the globe. One of his early papers showed that natural climatic change could occur as the result of random exchanges involving heat storage in the oceans, while another early paper treated central places in terms of inventory management and stochastic processes.

Curry received the Canadian Association of Geographers Award for Scholarly Distinction in 1977. Other honors included a Visiting Commonwealth Professorship in the U.S., a Guggenheim Fellowship at Cambridge University, an inaugural Connaught Senior Fellowship in the Social Sciences, a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Study Center in Bellagio, a fellowship at the Australian National University, a citation for Meritorious Contributions from the Association of American Geographers, and the International Geographical Union’s prestigious Lauréat d’Honneur.

Author of the book, The Random Spatial Economy and Its Evolution (1998), Curry was featured in Geographical Voices (2002), an anthology of autobiographical essays by 14 eminent geographers, edited by Peter Gould and Forrest Pitts.
A celebration of Les Curry’s life will be held at the Faculty Club, University of Toronto, on Monday, April 20, 2009. If you would like to attend, please contact Andrew Malcolm at UTAGA@geog.utoronto.ca.

Leslie Curry (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 44(3): 27.

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Larry Ford

Larry Ford died on September 17, 2009. He was a longtime professor of geography at San Diego State University, where he spent his entire professional career after earning a PhD from the University of Oregon in 1970. Ford’s interests included urban geography, comparative urbanization, urban form/ design, cultural meanings of urban space, downtown revitalization and historic preservation. Known as an innovative thinker and a persuasive writer, he authored the acclaimed books, Cities and Buildings: Skyscrapers, Skidrows, and Suburbs (1994) and America’s New Downtowns: Reinvention and Revitalization (2003), as well as the thought-provoking The Spaces Between Buildings (2000), which examined ordinary and often unnoticed features of the urban landscape such as alleys, driveways and other recesses and suppressed cultural spaces. More recently, Ford wrote Metropolitan San Diego (2004) and My Kind of Suburb: the Inter- War Years in California (forthcoming from The Center for American Places). Ford received many accolades throughout his career. He was presented with a Distinguished Service Award from the Historical Site Board of the City of San Diego in 1981; a Distinguished Teacher Award from the National Council for Geographic Education in 1985; and a Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers in 1995. He occupied the Benjamin and Louise Carroll Revolving Endowed Chair of Urban Studies at the University of Oregon in the Spring of 2000, and was awarded the Distinguished Educator Award by the California Geographical Society in 2004. Much of his inspiration for research on comparative urbanism came from a number of Fulbright awards. Within the disciplines of geography, urban planning, anthropology and sociology, Ford is known for his conceptual models of urban structure, the most enduring of which is “A Model of Latin American City Structure” (Geographical Review 1980, co-authored with Ernst Griffin). Ford served as President of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers in 1982-1983, as an AAG Regional Councillor, and as a member of the American Geographical Society Council (1996-2003 and 2004-2009). He also served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Geography and the Geographical Review. A recently completed Planetizen poll of architects and urban planners ranked Ford as among the world’s top 100 urban thinkers, placing his name alongside notables such as Frederick Law Olmstead, Walter Benjamin, William H. Whyte, Henri Lefebvre, Lewis Mumford, and Thomas Jefferson.

Larry Ford (Necrology) 2009. AAG Newsletter 44(10): 17.

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John Odland

Professor emeritus John Odland of the Department of Geography at Indiana University died on September 14, 2009. Odland joined Indiana University in 1970 as lecturer and rose through the ranks to the position of professor in 1989. He served the department as chair from 1989 to 1993 and retired in December of 2007.

Odland was known as a rigorous scholar with diverse research interests. These included national and international migration, spatial analyses of labor markets, urban and regional economic inequalities, and spatial modeling. His teaching interests included population geography, mathematical and statistical models in geography, and geographic information systems. Born in Saskatchewan on March 26, 1943, Odland spent his early years in North Dakota, Montana, and Oregon. Working his way through college primarily as a road and bridge surveyor, Odland received his B.S. in geography from Oregon State University in 1966 and earned an M.S. from the same department the following year. He acquired his PhD from Ohio State University in 1972, where his mentors Emilio Casetti, Leslie King, and Reginald Golledge were at the forefront of the quantitative revolution in human geography. Following this lead, Odland became an outstanding spatial modeler, quantifier, and economic geographer with a strong reputation as an empiricist. Odland was also known as an influential teacher and mentor who constantly sought to motivate and facilitate excellence in the students and colleagues with whom he interacted. He has been referred to by colleagues as selfless in his willingness to provide mentorship and to serve as a reviewer for tenure and promotion cases from across the country and hundreds of journal articles and research proposals.

John Odland (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 44(10): 17.

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Fred Lukermann

Fred E. Lukermann, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota and a former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, died on September 1, 2009. A Minneapolis native, born December 9, 1921, Lukermann graduated

from Roosevelt High School in 1940 and entered the University of Minnesota the following fall. He returned to the University after serving in the U.S. Army, earning B.S., M.A. and PhD degrees. Lukermann joined the University of Minnesota’s Geography Department in the early 1950s and helped that program achieve steadily greater national and international recognition. As department chair, Lukermann promoted a pervasive spirit of wide-ranging and creative intellectual inquiry. Lukermann assumed several leadership roles at the University of Minnesota in addition to his term as chair of the Geography Department. He was instrumental in establishing the Departments of African American & African Studies, American Indian Studies, Chicano Studies, the Urban Studies Program, the School of Public Affairs (later renamed the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs), and the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs. Along with his inspired teaching, generous

advising of graduate students, and creative scholarly output, Lukermann pursued lifelong interests in what he termed the “proto-geography” of Classical Greece, the development of modern geographic thought and practice within the history of science, the historical geography of North America, and cultural pluralism.

Fred E. Lukermann (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 44(10): 17.

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