James F. Crow, a leader in the field of population genetics who helped shape public policy toward atomic radiation damage and the use of DNA in the courtroom, died last Wednesday at his home in Madison, Wis. He was 95.
MADISON – Sharon Lynn Drugan, age 52, of Madison, passed away Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012, after a long, courageous, hard-fought and stoic battle with cancer. She worked a series of library jobs at UW-Madison libraries, the longest and most recent being at College Library. Sharon was very dedicated to this job, continuing to work as much as she could even while seriously ill.
MADISON – Beverly Ann Woolhiser Steinhoff passed away Sunday morning, Jan. 8, 2012 at the Agrace Hospice after a long battle with heart problems. She worked as an instructor in the School of Nursing, teaching both undergrad and graduate level courses. Bev was active in the UW-Madison School of Nursing Alumni Association, serving as chairperson for a number of years. One of the most significant achievements was to challenge the class of 1953 to pledge over $25,000 to the new School of Nursing building program. Subsequent classes have tried to better this unbelievable amount. Bev was awarded Nursing Alumni of the year for this achievement.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison community is mourning the loss of a legend: James F. Crow, professor emeritus of genetics, who passed away peacefully at his home on Jan. 4, two weeks shy of his 96th birthday.
WATERTOWN – Gerald Maurice “Maury” Kieffer, age 79, of Watertown, passed away on Jan. 5, 2012, at Angel?s Grace Hospice in Oconomowoc, surrounded by his loving family. He was a member of UW Alumni Association and WALSAA, the Wisconsin Agricultural and Life Science Alumni Association.
MADISON – Edwin Young died Jan. 2, 2012, in Madison, Wis., at the age of 94. He had a long and distinguished career at the University of Wisconsin as a student, then a professor of economics, and administrator from 1945 until he retired in 1987. He served at many levels of administration, culminating with his terms as Chancellor of UW-Madison and UW President. A celebration of Edwin Young’s life will be held at a later date. Memorials may be made to the Free Rural Eye Clinic care of the University of Wisconsin Foundation, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Economics care of the University of Wisconsin Foundation, and to the University of Maine.
Eric John Norman, age 69, of Madison, passed quietly from this life at Agrace HospiceCare on Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011. Eric worked at UW?s Academic Computing Center (later Division of Information Technology) for more than 41 years until his retirement in 2008. During those years Eric made significant contributions to academic computing. His expertise was pivotal in the development of the first e-mail system for students and faculty, long before the days of the internet made e-mail commonplace. In the years directly preceding his retirement, Eric became a recognized expert in the emerging fields of digital security and data encryption at UW-Madison and peer institutions across the country.
A memorial service for Mollie E. Buckley will be held from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012, on the WISCONSIN UNION THEATER STAGE in the MEMORIAL UNION on UW-Madison campus.
James Crow, a University of Wisconsin-Madison geneticist whose career spanned nearly seven decades, died this week at the age of 95.
James F. Crow, one of the world?s most eminent evolutionary biologists and a popular UW-Madison professor for more than 40 years, died Wednesday in Madison. He was 95. The university named its Institute for the Study of Evolution after Crow in 2009.
“Jim was a major figure in the history ? up to the present ? of evolutionary genetics,” said John Hawks, an associate professor of anthropology. In addition to his research on the behavior of genes and the effects of radiation on the human mutation rate, Crow served on a number of groundbreaking national committees. He chaired a national committee that compiled a report on the use of DNA evidence in the courtroom.
H. Edwin Young, the former chancellor who led the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the tumultuous Vietnam War era and later presided over the University of Wisconsin System, died Monday.
Former University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Hugh Edwin Young, who led the university during the tumultuous Vietnam War era, has died. He was 94.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison says former Chancellor Hugh Edwin Young has died.
Hugh Edwin Young, who served as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the tumultuous Vietnam War era, died on Monday, Jan. 2 in Madison. He was 94.
“For over 40 years, Edwin Young brought shrewd and wise leadership to every position he held on campus, offering stability during some of the university?s most trying times,” said Interim Chancellor David Ward in a news release. “We send our thoughts and best wishes to his family.” Young?s folksy Maine accent and dry humor masked a canny political mind. With a background in labor relations and an intricate network of contacts, he surveyed each challenge carefully before deciding how to move.
Hugh Edwin Young, who served as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the tumultuous Vietnam War era, died on Monday, Jan. 2 in Madison. He was 94.
Edwin Young, the former head of both UW-Madison and the University of Wisconsin System, died Monday of natural causes at the age of 94. Young served as chancellor at UW-Madison from 1968 to 1977, which was one of the most turbulent eras on campus due to the anti-war demonstrations. He was heading the university on Aug. 24, 1970, when Madison was rocked by a bomb exploding outside Sterling Hall.
“His chief recognition, for better or worse, was that he kept the university open in 1970, ?71 and ?72 even during all the student disturbances,” says David Johnson, a UW-Madison emeritus professor of economics who first got to know Young during the 1950s. “There were calls by some to close it down, but he refused. He held the university together.”
Emmett L. Bennett Jr., a classicist who played a vital role in deciphering Linear B, the Bronze Age Aegean script that defied solution for more than 50 years after it was unearthed on clay tablets in 1900, died on Dec. 15 in Madison, Wis. He was 93. His daughter Cynthia Bennett confirmed the death.
Professor Bennett was considered the father of Mycenaean epigraphy ? that is, the intricate art of reading inscriptions from the Mycenaean period, as the slice of the Greek Bronze Age from about 1600 to 1200 B.C. is known. His work, which entailed analysis so minute that he could eventually distinguish the handwritings of many different Bronze Age scribes, helped open a window onto the Mycenaean world.
MADISON – Jose Guadalupe “Lupe” Avila Saldana, age 66, of Madison, died on Sunday, Jan. 1, 2012, at St. Mary?s Hospital in Madison, with his family by his side. He worked at UW-Madison as a mail clerk for 36 years.
Emmett Bennett Jr., who spent nearly three decades as a faculty member at UW-Madison before he retired in 1988, is remembered as the father of Mycenaean epigraphy in this fascinating New York Times obituary which ran over the weekend. The post was passed along by a local reader who referred to Bennett as a “giant in archeology and cryptology circles.”
Former University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Hugh Edwin Young, who led the university during the tumultuous Vietnam War era, has died. He was 94.The university says Young died Monday in Madison. The Newfoundland native received his master’s degree and Ph.D. at UW-Madison and became an economics teacher there in 1947. He left in 1965 to become president of the University of Maine, but returned to UW-Madison and was named chancellor in 1968.
Jane E. Larson, age 53, died in her home Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011.
MADISON – Jane E. Larson, 53, died in her home on Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011. In 1996 she joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she continued her writing and lecturing on feminist legal theory and property law. Her academic writing has been called “a model of how to integrate the history of doctrine with the surrounding social values.” She was an inspiring teacher. When she retired in October 2011, she was the Voss-Bascom Professor of Law.
FITCHBURG – Paul J. Bertics, age 55, passed away unexpectedly at his home on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011. Paul joined the UW faculty in 1986 and was currently the Robert Turell Professor of Physiology (endowed chair), Kellett Professor of Biomolecular Chemistry, a member of the Executive Committee of the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center, and a co-director in the Material Sciences Research Center in the UW School of Engineering. Paul was extremely dedicated to the students at the UW serving as chair of Medical School admissions for years, instructing over 3,000 medical students, training over 55 graduate and postdoctoral students and mentoring countless undergraduates. He received numerous awards, including the student-selected UW Medical School teaching award twice and the UW Distinguished Teaching Award – Chancellor’s Teaching Award.
Paul Bertics, a UW-Madison professor of biomolecular chemistry honored for his research and teaching, comfortable in a laboratory, before a class or in a canoe, died Thursday at his rural Fitchburg home. A cause of death was not available for Bertics, 55, a leading cancer researcher and the university?s Kellett Professor of Biomolecular Chemistry.
HARTLAND- Lena Jenison from Hartland died in a car crash half a world away Tuesday, while she volunteered for the Peace Corps.
MADISON – George Carl Klingbeil, age 93, passed on to eternal life on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011. In 1953 he joined the staff of the UW-Madison Horticulture Department as an Extension fruit specialist. He had the pleasure of working with the cranberry, strawberry, apple and small fruit growers in Wisconsin. He authored several publications on fruit production and marketing. He served as secretary and education director of the Wisconsin State Horticultural Society and the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association. He retired in 1978 after 25 years with the university.
Noted: She went on to take a Master?s degree in Genetics and Zoology from the University of Wisconsin, where she became obsessed with microbes .
Like so many people in Madison, I knew and admired LaMarr Billups. Sunday afternoon, hundreds of those people came together at Edgewood College?s St. Joseph?s chapel to pay their respects to a man who meant so much to so many causes and programs in our community.
LaMarr passed away on Nov. 11th at his home in Falls Church, Va., where he had been living since he left his job at the UW to join the staff at Georgetown University. He was only 59, but in those years he built a legacy that will survive him for years and years to come.
GEORGETOWN, Texas – Howard John Schwebke passed away peacefully on Nov. 11, 2011. In 1953 he moved with his family to Monona to begin his career with the University of Wisconsin as a professor of engineering. He retired in 1983.
Friends and family of University of Wisconsin senior Zach Zenk, who died last week in his Madison home, honored his memory during a memorial service in La Crosse Tuesday.
LaMarr Q. Billups, a lifelong fighter for economic and social justice, died on Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, after collapsing at his home in Falls Church, VA.
MADISON – After 38 years of treasured life, Rebecca Joy Holz, passed away peacefully, surrounded by her loving family on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. Rebecca began her career with the UW Health Sciences Libraries in July 2002 as a research intern for the Access Services unit; then in 2004, she accepted a permanent position as an Information Architecture Librarian.
Kevin M. Roley, M.D., age 54, of Madison, died Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. Kevin completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kevin was chief resident, won many teaching awards and then went on to have a distinguished career in medicine.
MADISON – Mark Rosa, age 61, passed away from complications of multiple sclerosis on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. He worked at UW-Madison Mills Music Library before retiring in 2005.
MADISON – Richard ?Arthur? Dodd died at home in Madison on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011, as a result of cancer first diagnosed in 2007. Arthur was active in initiating a graduate program in Materials Science at the UW and later, in 1974, he became chairperson of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He had many graduate students from countries throughout the world. He was awarded many research grants and published more than 150 technical papers. In 1974 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science by the University of London for contributions to metallurgical science.
Noted: She earned a master?s degree in genetics and zoology from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining the faculty at Massachusetts, she taught for 22 years at Boston University.
Lynn Margulis, a biologist whose work on the origin of cells helped transform the study of evolution, died on Tuesday at her home in Amherst, Mass. She was 73. She held master’s degrees in genetics and zoology from UW-Madison.
COLUMBUS – Lawrence “Larry” Greischar Ph.D., of Columbus, born on March 6, 1949, died on Nov. 21, 2011, after several unsuccessful treatments for vocal chord cancer. He loved his job brain mapping in the Lab for Affective Neuroscience at the Psychology department, the Brain Imaging Lab and the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center at UW-Madison.
Anton William Rajer, art conservator, teacher, humanitarian from Green Bay and Madison, passed away suddenly of a heart attack on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. Rajer was a historic preservationist who helped restore murals and ceiling paintings at the State Capitol. He was 59. Rajer lived primarily in Green Bay but kept an apartment in Madison, where he taught throughout his career at UW-Madison in continuing education.
PRAIRIE DU SAC – Mollie Eileen Buckley, 72, passed away on Sunday, Nov. 13, 2011, at The Pines Assisted Living in Prairie du Sac. Mollie spent most of her adult life in Madison, where she held various positions including Public Information and Membership Director, Madison Arts Center; Director of Public Information, UW Center Systems; Publicity Director Wisconsin Union Theater and Wisconsin Union Membership Director. In 1984 she joined the UW Foundation staff as Director of Communications and in 2001 was named a vice president.
Adrian Charles Vincent Pope passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, Nov. 13, 2011, at the Pope family farm in Arena. Charlie was very proud of his work at the UW Hospital burn unit. Founder of the Madison Aids Support Network, Charlie was recently featured in the Isthmus for his contributions to the community.
Helen Frances O?Brien, age 91, passed away on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011, at St. Mary?s Care Center. Helen worked as a secretary for the Board of Regents at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 16 years.
In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick had elucidated the double helix structure of DNA, but they did not know how DNA?s instructions (for the building of proteins that shape every aspect of our bodies) were implemented. Then, in the late 1950s, Holley showed that small molecules of Ribonucleic acids (RNA, a chemical in cells) called transfer RNAs, perform the role of a “messengers”, carrying coding information to the sites where amino acids are synthesised into proteins.
Har Gobind Khorana, who rose from poverty in rural India to become a giant of modern biology, winning the Nobel Prize in 1968 for work that helped decipher the genetic code and explain how cells make proteins, died Nov. 9 in Concord, Mass. He was 89.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill.- Dr. Thomas G. Shanahan, age 54, of Springfield, died on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011, at his residence. He served his residency at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, specializing in radiation oncology. He also developed the belly board while at the University of Wisconsin and it is still in use today.
Dr. Robert “Bob” Tomesh, age 63, passed away peacefully after a courageous battle with cancer on Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011. He recently retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison/Extension as a senior lecturer in horticulture and outreach specialist. He was very involved with the State Master Gardeners program as its educational director and changed the quality of life for many gardeners in the state.
This editorial is to honor the life of LaMarr Billups who died last week. We want to say LaMarr made Madison better. And he did.
LaMarr Billups, assistant vice president for business planning policy, died in his Falls Church, Va., home Friday after a brief illness. He was 59 years old.
Had he wanted to do it, we would have had a Mayor LaMarr Billups administration over the last eight years instead of mine.
The University of Wisconsin lost one of its most storied researchers when professor Har Gobind Khorana, former director at the UW Department of Biochemistry and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, died last Wednesday at the age of 89.
LaMarr Billups, a former Madison community leader and special assistant to two UW-Madison chancellors, died Friday at his home in Falls Church, Va., after a short illness. He was 59. At UW-Madison, Billups was director of community relations from 1996 to 2007. He served as a special assistant during UW-Madison Chancellor David Ward?s first term and during the tenure of former UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley.
?LaMarr provided an essential bridge between university and community,? Ward said in a statement. ?All who knew him will miss him deeply.?
H. Gobind Khorana, who rose from poverty in rural India to become one of the world?s foremost biochemists and who shared the Nobel Prize for helping unravel how genetic information in a cell is used to make proteins vital for human life, died Nov. 9 at a rehabilitation facility in Concord, Mass. He was believed to be 89.
Noted: He earned an engineering degree from the University of Wisconsin and worked as an engineer and product designer in Minnesota.
H. Gobind Khorana, who rose from a childhood of poverty in India to become a biochemist and share in a Nobel Prize for his role in deciphering the genetic code, died on Wednesday in Concord, Mass. He was 89.
Philip E. Miles Jr., age 81, died on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011, at Agrace HospiceCare in Madison. Phil joined the mathematics faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1960 and was an active faculty member for 40 years. He had a deep interest in mathematics education, and was an early advocate of the use of some new kinds of technology in teaching.
Patrick J. “Pat” Kennedy, age 80, passed away on Monday, Oct. 31, 2011, at his home in Madison. He worked for the University of Wisconsin Press for 30 years, retiring in 1988.
David A. Prosa, age 67, passed away on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011, at Middleton Village Nursing Center. He worked for UW Transportation Services for 32 years prior to his retirement.
Lee “Doc” Allenstein died peacefully at the age of 86, surrounded by family on Oct. 22, 2011, at Fairhaven, Whitewater, Wis. For more than 40 years, dairy clients and their families benefited from his expertise, wisdom, and thoughtful care. He was a natural instructor and enjoyed explaining his diagnoses and treatments. In 1987 he became a clinical professor and later a faculty associate at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.
John R. Erickson passed away at home surrounded by his family the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011, at age 81. He worked as the director of operations for the University of Wisconsin?s Physical Plant for 35 years until his retirement.
Mark S. Koshalek, age 63, died on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He was employed as a database administrator at UW Hospital.
