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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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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Bill Loy

University of Oregon geography professor William (Bill) Loy died on 25 November 2003, of complications from cancer.  He was 67.  After completing graduate degrees in geography at the University of Chicago and the University of Minnesota, Bill went on to carve out a thirty-year career at the University of Oregon.  A noted cartographer, Bill served as Director and Cartographer for two editions of the Atlas of Oregon.  Both atlases won numerous awards, including the Globe Book Award from the Association of American Geographers (2001) and the Best Book and Atlas Award from the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (2002).  They have served as models for many other state atlases.

Bill was an extraordinarily active AAG member, leading membership drives in his region and supporting AAG initiatives throughout his career.   He also was one of the country’s most influential teachers of cartography, mentoring a number of students who went on to carve out distinguished professional careers as mapmakers.  For his work in this and other areas, Bill received numerous awards, including the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Oregon (2002), Oregon Scientist of the Year from the Oregon Academy of Science (1997), and the Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers (1991).  Memorial contributions may be made to University of Oregon Foundation Geography Department (https://geography.uoregon.edu).

William Loy (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(1): 15.

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David Watts

David Watts, who died of a stroke on 13 November 2003, was among a talented group of geographers appointed at the University of Hull, UK, in the 1960s. David came to the Hull Geography Department in 1963 and was promoted to Reader. He served as Dean of the School of Geography and Earth Resources 1988-1991. He retired in 2002.

Born in 1935 in Derbyshire, David Watts held degrees from University College, London, the University of California at Berkeley, and McGill University, Montreal. His doctorate on the introduction of plants and landscape change in Barbados began a love affair with the Caribbean, which culminated in 1987 the remarkable study The West Indies; patterns of development, culture and environmental change since 1492. It was later translated into Spanish.

David was a pioneer in the promotion of biogeography, and his Principles of Biogeography (1971) became a standard text. A significant achievement was the establishment of the Journal of Biogeography, for which David was the founder-editor. In the 1990s David’s interests in island ecosystems and the Caribbean were extended to China, Korea and the Middle East.

David Watts was a scholar of genuine international repute and a congenial colleague, a courteous and sensitive man with a wide circle of friends. He leaves a widow, Nancy, and a son, Chris, from his first marriage.

David Watts (Necrology). 2004. AAG Newsletter 39(1): 15.

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Frank F. Ehrenthal

Frank Ehrenthal, noted urban planner and architect, passed away on August 2, 2003, aged 93.

Ferenc Frederik Ehrenthal was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1910. From a young age he was determined to be an architect and was studied at the University of Florence, Italy, earning a doctorate in architecture in 1935.

After spending four years as an architect in Milan, Ehrenthal emigrated to the United States in 1939, anglicizing his name to Frank. He settled in New York and worked as an architect until joining the naval architecture firm, George Sharp Inc. in 1942. There he helped to design destroyer escort ships and escort aircraft carriers that protected cargo vessels from enemy submarines as the convoys crossed the Atlantic; these proved vital for the war effort.

In 1945 Ehrenthal moved to San Francisco and established an architectural practice, designing an array of buildings over the next 18 years.

His academic career in architecture and urban design began in 1963 when he was invited to join the faculty at Penn State University. He moved to Oklahoma State University in 1965 and then to Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1968, where he stayed until retirement as Emeritus Professor in 1980. There he was instrumental in creating the Graduate Division of Environmental and Urban Systems, elevating the importance of integrated planning in the public domain. He also led the research and design efforts that eventually created the bus stop shelters seen in many cities.

In 1981, he founded Architects, Designers, Planners for Social Responsibility, an organization that promotes disarmament, protection of the environment and responsible planning practices.

Ehrenthal belonged to the Unitarian Church all his life. Throughout his life and career, he was dedicated to Unitarian-Universalist principles and was a member of local congregations wherever he lived. His architecture is found in a number of Unitarian-Universalist churches located throughout the U.S. including The Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California, and the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society church which was recognized as “one of the most distinctive ecclesiastical buildings in all of Southern California.” It was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2009.

He wrote a book tracing the origins of Unitarianism among the Hungarian Szekely people and the relationships between Unitarianism and early Christianity in Eastern Europe and Asia. From Mongolia to Transylvania: Szekely Origins and Radical Faith: The Birth of Unitarianism uses source material written in archaic languages and brings to light little known information about Eastern European history within a geographic context. This work of scholarship was published posthumously by his family in 2014.

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Orland Maxfield

Dr. Orland Maxfield, emeritus professor of geography, University of Arkansas, died 14 May 2003. In 1945, he graduated from George Peabody College for Teachers, and he later earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the Ohio State University. He joined the faculty at the University of Arkansas in 1946 and retired in 1990. He established the geography department in 1948 and chaired the department for many years. He helped establish many interdisciplinary programs and chaired the Western Civilization unit for many years. His professional interests were varied but he was devoted to the conservation of natural resources. In the early 1970s, he chaired Governor Dale Bumpers’ Committee on Land Use Policy for Arkansas.

Orland belonged to many professional organizations. He was devoted to Gamma Theta Upsilon (GTU), and he was a 50-year plus member of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) and the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE). In 2002, he received the Distinguished Mentor Award from NCGE. He served as the International Executive Secretary of GTU from 1972 to 1992, President from 1993-94, and Historian and Archivist to the present.

Memorials may be made to Gamma Theta Upsilon (the Educational Fund) by contacting Dr. Virgil Holder, Executive Secretary, Gamma Theta Upsilon, Department of Geography, University of WILa Crosse, La Crosse, WI 54601.

Orland Maxfield (Necrology). 2003. AAG Newsletter 38 (8): 21

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