Monday, December 5, 2022
I am so sorry to learn of Bills passing. Please accept my most sincere condolences. I have known Bill since 1966. He accepted me as a graduate student of his at PSU working on the Living Filter. A year or two later I started working on the University Experimental Watersheds in Stone Valley which Bill established in the late 1950’s working closely with the US Forest Service and the Pennsylvania Department of Forest and Waters. After I completed my MS degree in 1969, I entered a PhD program at PSU with Bill as my major professor. At the time, Bill had received a grant from the Nation Science Foundation to construct an irrigation system on a forested watershed to simulate rainfall using water pumped from the Stone Valley Lake. As Bill devoted more time to the Living Filter I eventually took over the Experimental Watershed Research Program after completing my PhD degree in 1974. If it had not been for Bill, his confidence in me and his mentoring I never would have achieved the level of success that I did during my nearly 40-year tenure at Penn State. Not to be disrespectful, Bill was an extremely intelligent and gifted “thinker” but was not very good when it came to using tools. In fact, Bill called me after he returned home from his accident in FL and long rehabilitation to help assemble a stationary exercise bike at his home in Harris Acres. Helping me on that project was Dr. Gerhold, a fellow faculty member in the School of Forest Resources. The most recent interaction I had with Bill was in the Juniper Wellspring Memory Care Facility where my wife Jane was a resident. After seeing Bill, I asked one of the aides to bring him to the library to meet with me. Even though I was wearing a mask, Bill recognized me. I believe that was in early-mid January. After our initial meeting I made it a point to greet Bill daily and even brought some old black and white pictures I had of him and Rex Melton, a fellow faculty member, taken when the Shale Hills Experimental Watersheds were established in the early 1960’s. Bill was not only my mentor, he was a very good friend and will be missed.
With Sympathy,
Jim Lynch
Student/Colleague/Friend
