C. Barron McIntosh

C. Barron McIntosh, Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, died recently following a long battle with cancer. Born in Edgemont, South Dakota in 1916, McIntosh graduated from Huron College in 1939 and taught in Sandhills high schools until 1949. He also served in the U.S. Navy. McIntosh was appointed Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Nebraska in 1958 and he remained there for the rest of his professional life.

McIntosh published a series of articles in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers in the 1970s that established his reputation as an original and accomplished historical geographer. Meticulously working from the United States Land Office Records, he constructed maps of the Nebraska Sandhills that revealed new patterns of settlement. His later book, The Nebraska Sandhills: The Human Landscape (1996) became the definitive study of the
settlement of that region.

C. Baron McIntosh (Necrology). 2007. AAG Newsletter 42(7): 21

See All Memorials
    Share

Kwadwo Konadu-Agyemang

Kwadwo Konadu-Agyemang, professor of Geography and Planning at the University of Akron, died recently following an extended illness at the age of 52. His professional career included service as an instructor and professor at several colleges and universities in Australia, Canada, and the United States. He joined the University of Akron in 1997 as an assistant professor and earned the rank of full professor in 2006.

Born in Ghana in 1955, Kwadwo completed his BSc in land economy at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi in 1981. After a short stint in the Government Lands Department in Ghana, he spent two years in Nigeria teaching high school. Kwadwo subsequently moved to Australia where he completed a master’s degree in urban planning at Melbourne University in 1987 and a PhD in geography at Monash University in 1991.

Kwadwo’s research and publications focused principally on African economic development, urban problems, and population migration. He authored one book, The Political Economy of Housing and Urbanization in Africa (2000), and edited or co-edited three more, IMF and World Bank Programs in Africa: Ghana’s Experiences (2001), The New African Diaspora in Community Building and Adaptation (2006), and Africa in the 21st Century: Pertinent Socio-economic Issues (2006). In addition, he authored or co-authored over 30 professional articles and book chapters.

Kwadwo Konadu-Agyemang (Necrology). 2007. AAG Newsletter 42(9): 17.

See All Memorials
    Share

Ronald Weinkauf

Ronald A. Weinkauf, emeritus professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, died recently at the age of 71 following a lengthy illness.

Weinkauf earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and a master’s degree from the University of Oregon. He received his PhD from Oregon State University in 1963. He joined UW-La Crosse in 1979 and retired twenty years later as a full professor.

Weinkauf specialized in satellite remote sensing and GIS. He developed the geography and earth science department’s remote sensing curriculum, which is still being taught as part of the program in GIScience. His National Science Foundation grants helped launch the department’s GIS computer laboratory facilities in 1989. Weinkauf started the GIS internship program with the former Environmental Mapping and Technical Center (which became the Upper Midwest Environmental Science Center), a part of the U.S. Geological Survey. He also received grants to conduct workshops in remote sensing and earth science for K-12 teachers in the La Crosse, Wisconsin area.

Weinkauf was involved with many professional organizations throughout his career, including the AAG, North American NOAA Polar-Orbiting Users Group, National Science Foundation, Wisconsin Geographical Society, Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center, and the Wisconsin Land Information Association.

Ronald A. Weinkauf (Necrology).2008. AAG Newsletter 43(1): 14.

See All Memorials
    Share

Mingma Norbu Sherpa

Mingma Norbu Sherpa was born October 31, 1955, in Khunde village in the Sherpa homeland of Khumbu within what is now Sagarmatha (Chomolungma/Mt. Everest) National Park. Because he spoke several local languages and English, he was working as a translator for visiting trekkers and conservationists in his teens. He became a protégé of Sir Edmund Hillary who in 1953 became the first Westerner to scale Mount Everest. Mingma was in the first class of the first school established by Hillary around Everest. He continued on to graduate from Lincoln College (now a branch of New Zealand’s University of Canterbury), in 1980. He earned a master’s degree in natural resources management in 1985 from the University of Manitoba. As a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Michigan in 1987, he created a plan for environmental education in Nepal. Mingma, along with Chandra Gurung, was central to the development of the conservation area concept in Nepal. In 1985 a team including Mingma and Chandra proposed and planned the establishment of Annapurna Conservation Area where Mingma later served as the first director. Mingma and Chandra felt that the conservation area approach would not reach its full potential until local residents assumed full responsibility for conservation area management as they now have in Kanchenjunga Conservation Area. Mingma hoped that this would spread to all of Nepal’s national parks including Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park. He became a ranger there in 1980 and within six months became the park’s first Sherpa warden. Mingma joined the WWF in 1989 to direct programs in Nepal, Bhutan, and the Terai Arc region of Nepal and India. Among other projects, he led efforts to protect endangered wildlife, including the Bengal tiger and the greater one-horned rhinoceros.

Mingma Norbu Sherpa (Necrology). 2006. AAG Newsletter 41(10): 6.

See All Memorials
    Share

Voit Gilmore

Public servant, travel and tourism scholar, and geographer Voit Gilmore died October 15, 2006. Gilmore was born October 13, 1918, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1939 with degrees in journalism and political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where years later he earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in geography.

Gilmore’s early career included a job with Pan American Airlines and two years in the U.S. Navy. After World War II, he moved to Southern Pines, North Carolina where he founded Four Seasons Travel Service.

Gilmore served as president of several organizations including the American Society of Travel Agents, the American Forestry Association, and the North Carolina Forestry Association (he operated his family’s lumber manufacturing business from 1947-61).

Gilmore also served as mayor of Southern Pines, North Carolina, as a state senator for two terms, and in a variety of capacities for four North Carolina governors. He was the first director of the U.S. Travel Service, forerunner to the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration, a post he held during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Over the years, he served as a correspondent from Vietnam, the Arctic and Antarctic for a group of North Carolina newspapers.

In 2000, he and his former wife, Kathryn McNeil, donated more than 500 acres of land and buildings at Purchase Knob to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The gift became the Appalachian Highland Science Learning Center, one of only five such educational centers in the National Park System, with more than 5,000 students participating each year.

Gilmore was a life fellow of the Royal Geographic Society of London, a recipient of the “Mr. Travel” Award from the Golden Helm Society of World Travel Leaders and a member of the Travel Association Hall of Leaders.

In 2004 Gilmore received North Carolina’s highest honor, the North Carolina Award for Public Service, an annual presentation to those who have made significant contributions in science, literature, fine arts and public service.

He established the Voit Gilmore Distinguished Professorship in Geography and the John D. Eyre Geography Travel Fund at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Voit Gilmore (Necrology). 2006. AAG Newsletter 41(10): 23.

See All Memorials
    Share

Chandra Prasad Gurung

Chandra Gurung was born in the mountain village of Siklesh, the largest Gurung village in what is now Annapurna Conservation Area. Gurung—the general name for the indigenous people of the region as well as his surname—earned a master’s degree in rural development planning from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand and a PhD in medical geography from the University of Hawaii in 1988. He specialized in eco-tourism, sustainable development, integrated conservation and development, and protected area management.

Chandra was a pioneer in designing and implementing the first community-based integrated conservation and development project, the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP). He worked together with Mingma Sherpa on the scouting mission and planning for ACAP and later worked as its second director. This project is regarded worldwide as a success in integrating conservation with sustainable rural development and eco-tourism. Chandra, along with his colleagues, was a pioneer in the proposal and implementation of the Terai Arc Landscape, an ambitious conservation project in the southern plains of Nepal. He also served as member secretary of the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation and received awards from the President of Finland, His Majesty Late King Birendra of Nepal, and His Royal Highness Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. Since July 1999, Chandra served as a country representative for Nepal for the WWF. He was also a visiting professor at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Chandra Prasad Gurung (Necrology). 2006. AAG Newsletter 41(10): 6.

See All Memorials
    Share

Harka Gurung

Harka Gurung was born in 1939 in Lamjung, Central Nepal, and went to military school in India. He earned BA honors from Patna College, Patna, India, and later earned a post-graduate diploma (1961) and PhD (1965) from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Harka’s main areas of professional interest included demography, development planning, environment, geography, sociology, and tourism. He was a prominent conservation expert and Nepal’s foremost authority on the Himalaya, making significant contributions to the promotion of mountain tourism and the conservation of wildlife and environment. Harka lead the government committee formed to provide names to mountain peaks in the late 1970s. He was also the chief advisor to the Nepal Maintaining Association. Harka served the government of Nepal at different times as member and vice chairman of the National Planning Commission (1968-75), minister of state for education (1975-78), and minister of state for tourism, industry and commerce, public works and transport. He also worked in academia as demonstrator at the University of Edinburgh, research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, lecturer at Tribhuvan University, and visiting fellow at the Population Institute/East-West Center. After leaving the government, he provided consulting services to numerous international organizations. Harka was director of the Asia Pacific Development Center, an inter-governmental think-tank (1993-97) and also served on the board of Lumbini Development Trust, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development and International Institute of Educational Planning. Since 1991, Harka was associated with the research and consulting firm New ERA. Harka disagreed with the class and caste classification in Nepal and one religion/ one language policies. His work added to the debate over exclusion felt by many communities in Nepal. Harka authored numerous books including: Pokhara Valley: A Geographical Survey; Vignettes of Nepal and Annapurna to Dhaulagiri; A Decade of Mountaineering in Nepal Himalaya, 1950-1960; Janajati Serophero; From Exclusion to Inclusion: Socio-Political Agenda for Nepal; Faces of Nepal; Nature and Culture: Random Reflections; and Nepali Nationalism. His articles mainly focused on geography, nationalism, building of nation, and issues of Janajati indigenous people.

Harka Gurung (Necrology). 2006. AAG Newsletter 41(10): 6.

See All Memorials
    Share
Publications

North America Land Cover Summit

This event was held in September 2006 at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington D.C. The aim was to assess national land cover monitoring efforts across the continent and identify areas of possible collaboration.

Jointly sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), and the Association of American Geographers (AAG), the Summit was attended by scientists and administrators from Canada, Mexico, Australia, Germany, and the United States whose organizational affiliation included governmental agencies, universities, non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations.

Pparticipants assessed critical issues for improving land cover applications, identified institutional needs and gaps in technical capabilities, reviewed innovative uses of land cover information, and noted opportunities for interagency and international collaboration.

This AAG Special Issue volume consists of selected papers presented at the Summit – with a few relevant additions – and summaries of the conference breakout sessions. This peer-reviewed compilation provides an overview of the land cover monitoring efforts and environmental assessments being performed across the North American continent, as well as examples of continental-scale monitoring efforts in Europe and Australia.

This publication is free to access online. See this link to download.

    Share
Geography Essentials Spatial Narratives
AAG Staff
AAG Staff

Charles Yahr

Charles Corbin Yahr, retired professor of geography at San Diego State University (SDSU), died on July 22, 2006. He was born June 23, 1925 in Chesterfield, Illinois. Yahr earned a bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University at Normal and a master’s and PhD in geography from the University of Illinois.

Yahr served in the U.S. Army from 1944-46, as a First Lieutenant. From 1952-54 he and his wife lived in Karachi, Pakistan while he worked as an editorial assistant for the Silver-Burdett Publishing Company and did field work for his dissertation on the geography of northwest Pakistan. After returning home, Yahr finished his PhD and in 1955 moved to San Diego for a teaching position at SDSU. He retired after thirty-three years at SDSU but continued to teach in the continuing education department and then as a tutor for the literacy project in San Diego.

Charles Corbin Yahr (Necrology). 2006. AAG Newsletter 41(9): 23.

See All Memorials
    Share

Caleb D. Hammond

Caleb D. Hammond, Jr., president of the map-making business C. S. Hammond & Company from 1948 to 1974, died at age ninety.

C. S. Hammond & Company was second only to Rand McNally in producing road maps and atlases pinpointing cities and towns, across the country and around the world. The 1955 edition of Hammond’s Ambassador World Atlas included 326 maps and a 242-page index with more than 100,000 location names.

Hammond made his mark on the family-owned company by selling its maps to book publishers, including Random House and Simon & Schuster. He also played a key role in helping the company as it made the transition to digital production.

In 1999, the company was sold to Langenscheidt Publishers, a German company that produces travel books and maps. Now known as the Hammond World Atlas Company, it is based in Springfield, New Jersey.

Hammond was born on June 24, 1915 and graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1937. He served in the Coast Guard during World War II.

In April 1948, Hammond was elected president of the company after serving as the company’s vice president and secretary. He retired in 1974, but remained active, working with the staff as it adjusted to using computers. The company produced the first digitally generated world atlas in 1992.

Caleb D. Hammond (Necrology). 2006. AAG Newsletter 41(7): 17.

See All Memorials
    Share