IAS Charter Member Duane LeTourneau Still with Us

Dr. LeTourneau. UI photo.

I had a note Friday afternoon from the daughter of Dr. Duane LeTourneau asking us to no longer send The Retort to her father. That triggered the thought that news about one of our few surviving Charter Members would make a perfect item for this blog. Dr. LeTourneau began his long career at the University of Idaho in 1953, when he was 27. He also served the Academy over a span of almost a half century.

He was, in fact, among those who first got the Academy up and running. The second edition of the IAS newsletter, in February 1959, listed the members of the organizing committee for the very first Annual Meeting of the Academy. Duane LeTourneau was identified as being in charge of Housing for the meeting in Moscow. (The newsletter became The Retort for the February 1960 issue.) Duane later served as Program Chair for Physical Science papers for the 1966 Annual Meeting held in Moscow. He was also the UI Trustee around that period.

LeTourneau seems to have focused on his teaching and research for a number of years after that. The October 1972 Retort noted that he planned to spend the spring semester on sabbatical at the University of Sheffield, in England. He appeared in the Retort again in 1975 for his leadership of an Undergraduate Research Program at the University of Idaho.

For a couple years after 1980, Duane acted as a UI “correspondent” to the Retort, providing tidbits about new faculty, grants won, and so forth. Then, in 1983, Dr. LeTourneau became Editor of the IAS Journal. The following year, The Retort carried the announcement of one of numerous awards Duane would receive during his career: a Presidential Citation for Distinguished Achievement at the University of Idaho.

In 1987, IAS President Duane LeTourneau presided over the Annual Symposium and Meeting in Moscow. He continued to also act as Journal Editor, leading the quality upgrade implemented in 1987-1988. The publication now included the (then) new “spectrum” logo, and text was thereafter typeset for copy production. He relinquished the Editor’s position two years later.

The Academy’s annual meeting was again scheduled for Moscow in 1996, when Art Gittins was our President. Dr. LeTourneau was a member of the organizing committee. Then, in February, Art suffered a stroke that forced him to cut back his activities. Duane and the other committee members “stepped into the breach” and pulled off, in Phil Anderson’s words, “one of the most ambitious meetings in IAS history.”

Ten years later, biochemistry Professor Emeritus Duane LeTourneau again served on the organizing committee for an Annual Meeting in Moscow. In fact, not until the last year or so did Duane – and his wife, Phyllis – begin to cut back on their schedule of helping numerous organizations.

When I “googled” his name, I got a remarkable number of hits: He had a finger in so many pies, won so many awards, generated so much affection, I can’t begin to list them all here. In 2009, he and Phyllis apparently moved into an assisted living apartment. They could thus no longer provide “a home away from home” to introduce female exchange students from the Isle of Man to life in Moscow, U. S. A. They had been doing that since 1984.

August 2010: Duane and Phyllis receive Certificate of thanks
from the Isle of Man government.

Three years after he arrived in Moscow, “Doc” LeTourneau was “the driving force” for organizing a chapter of the Farmhouse International fraternity at the University. Quoting a 2011 alumni news item: “Earlier this year, Doc concluded 53 years of service to the Idaho Farmhouse Chapter as adviser.” The same article noted that he had received an “Outstanding Adviser” award from the International, and that he and his wife would be similarly honored here in Idaho at the end of April.

Sadly, Phyllis did not live to see that occasion; she passed away early that month. They had been married for 63 years. The ceremony did proceed, and you can view a YouTube video of it here.

Although age has finally crept up on Charter Member Dr. Duane LeTourneau, it’s good to know that such a stalwart Academy supporter is still with us.