Hershel White

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hershel H. White Jr., 82, died on Wednesday, May 29, 2013, in Fort Smith. He was born July 6, 1930, in Fort Smith to Hershel Sr. and Myrtle Thompson White. He was a 1950 graduate of Northside High School and earned a bachelor of science degree from Southeastern Oklahoma State Univerity. He retired from the Arkansas Air National Guard, 188th Fighter Wing as an organization maintenance supervisor and was an Air Force veteran, having served six years active duty and 31 years with the 188th Fighter Wing. He was an active member at Grand Avenue Baptist Church and served in many capacities there through the years, including being a member of the Men’s Bible Study Fellowship. Hershel was also a 32nd degree Mason in the Sebastian Lodge.  He is survived by his wife, Mickie; a son, Tim D. White and his wife Pam of Fort Smith; two grandchildren, Justin White and Lindsey Heidelberg; and two great-grandchildren, Jaxdon and Lucas Heidelberg.  To view the online guestbook, visit www.edwardsfuneralhome.com.

JERRY HENDRIX

 

Jerry Henry Hendrix, 81, of Greenwood died Tuesday, May 28, 2013, in his home. He was retired from the Arkansas Department of Labor Safety Division, was a member of Greenwood United Methodist Church, was a 33rd-degree Mason, a member of Greenwood Lodge No. 131 F&AM, an Army veteran, had been stationed in Guam, a track and field official for the University of Arkansas and an avid quail and pheasant hunter.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara; one son, Kelly Hendrix of Greenwood; and one brother, B.G. Hendrix of Fort Smith. He was preceded in death by his parents, Bert and Thelma Hendrix, and two brothers, Dodson and P.C. Hendrix.


Memorials may be made to the American Cancer Society, P.O. Box 8006, Fort Smith, AR 72902 or to the charity of one’s choice.  To sign an online guestbook, please visit www.mcconnellfh.com.

Remembering Bill Willis
 (by Fred Krock):

 

Bill and I did not become acquainted until our junior year in High School. He came from Peabody elementary school and I came from Rogers. Kids from Rogers tended to stick together even through high school.

We got into our share of mischief. Bill had obtained a chemistry lab still. We tried to make vodka from potatoes. Bill named the resulting product “Old Willis.”  It produced a strong impact but unfortunately it always tasted like rotten potatoes.

We even shared a girl friend briefly. She was a class mate whose family returned to Tulsa shortly after she graduated. She eventually chose Bill over me. She made very clear to Bill and me that if this interfered with our friendship, she would never speak to either of us again.

Bill and I stayed in contact over the years. My wife and I visited him in New York and in Geneva. One of his children lives in San Francisco so this led to a number of dim sum lunches and Italian dinners.

The following text is a draft of an obituary that will be published by Columbia University.

Fred Krock

*   *   *   *   * 

William J. Willis, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Columbia University, died at his home in Dobbs Ferry, NY on Thursday, November 1st. Willis was 80. He is survived by his wife Lindsey Willis, and his children Catherine Willis Gildor, Christopher Willis, Thomas Willis, Andrew Jay Willis, and David Willis.

Willis was a towering presence in the development of particle physics, with a career encompassing nearly the entire history of the field. His contributions ranged from pioneering studies of parity violation at the Brookhaven Cosmotron in 1957 to this year's discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). He is the author of 357 publications, but that impressive output does not begin to measure his impact, for he was a true renaissance figure who influenced the development of particle physics, nuclear physics and accelerator physics.

Willis received both his undergraduate (1954) and graduate (1958) degrees from Yale University. He worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) before joining the Yale faculty in 1964. In 1973 he moved to CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, where he worked for 17 years before coming to Columbia as the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics. He was also head of the Center for Accelerator Physics (1990-1991) and an Assistant Director (1994-2010) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. 

Willis's work was characterized by deep insight into both the outstanding scientific questions of the day and the advances in

instrumentation necessary to investigate them. A particular example was his early and prescient advocacy of hermetic detectors relying in precision electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters. Early efforts in this direction led to the first observations of jets at the CERN ISR in 1983. His continuous involvement in the intervening years led to the development of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, one of the most sophisticated and powerful scientific experiments ever built, which shared in the discovery of the Higgs boson in July of this year.

In addition to these fundamental advances in particle physics, Willis made seminal contributions to nuclear physics, specifically in establishing the case for and the methods to investigate collisions of heavy nuclei at relativistic energies as a means of searching for new forms of matter. He worked with Columbia University Professor and Nobel Laureate T.D. Lee to promote this new field of physics, both in early investigations at Brookhaven and CERN, and in building the case for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which began operations at BNL in 2000. The discovery in 2005 of a new form of matter at RHIC, the strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma, is directly traceable to Willis's vision and scientific guidance as chair of the RHIC Technical Committee in the 1980's.

Willis's scientific leadership extended far beyond technical advances and physics accomplishments. He formed lifelong collaborations with colleagues around the globe, guiding their career development, suggesting new paths to follow and providing encouragement. His advice was especially valuable in overcoming setbacks and in viewing them as new opportunities. Willis's calm and reflective understanding that progress need not be monotonic played a major role in evolving the cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider and the associated Willis-led GEM experiment into the U.S. participation in the LHC program. Similarly, he helped transform the termination of the Isabelle project at BNL into the RHIC facility, and of late had been instrumental in finding a path forward for neutrino physics in light of the funding uncertainties for the Deep Underground Science Laboratory.

Willis expertise was recognized and his counsel valued by the world-wide community of particle physicists. He twice served on the U.S. High Energy Physics Advisory Panel, was a member of the Panel on Particle Physics of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and a Member of the Scientific Policy Committee of the Russian Ministry of Science. In 1993 he was elected to the American Academy of Science. Willis received the W.K.H. Panofsky Prize of the American Physical Society in 2003 "For his leading role in the development and exploitation of innovative techniques now widely adopted in particle physics, including liquid argon calorimetry, electron identification by detection of transition radiation, and hyperon beams."

Willis was a valued colleague whose wisdom will be sorely missed. He leaves behind both an extraordinary scientific legacy and a devoted world-wide network of collaborators who will carry forward his many contributions to modern particle, accelerator and nuclear physics.

For those who wish to make a donation in his memory, the family has suggested two organizations which were important to him:

Student Advocacy and Phelps Hospice.

http://www.studentadvocacy.net/support-us/donate/

https://secure.phelpshospital.org/community_giving/secure_donate.php 

(If giving to Phelps, please indicate in the "Additional Comments" section that you would like your donation to be made to "Hospice

- Tree of Lights")

ANNA KASTEN NELSON

Anna Kasten Nelson, a professor of U.S. diplomatic
 history at American University, died in her home in
 Washington, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012. She earned
 degrees from George Washington University, a Ph.D
. in history; from Ohio State University program in
 history; the University of Oklahoma, a master’s of
 arts in government; and the University of Oklahoma,
 a bachelor of arts in history.

Professor Nelson, distinguished historian in residence,
 was with American University for 22 years. Born in 
Fort Smith, she attended Fort Smith Junior College and
 was one of the early founders of the Fort Smith Little
Theatre. Professor Nelson returned there in recent
 years as a special lecturer at the University of Arkansas
 at Fort Smith.

In Washington, she was a member of the Department of
 State Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic
 Documentation and received a presidential appointment
 to the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review
 Board. She was a member of the National Coalition for
History Policy Board, the Society for Historians of American
 Foreign Relations, the American Historical Organization
 and the Organization of American Historians.


Professor Nelson published more than 30 articles in books
 and journals, such as the American Historical Review,
 Diplomatic History and the Journal of Military History.
 Recently, she edited a book of original essays and was
 the author of one in “The Policy Makers,” fall of 2009,
 and was also the author of the chapter “The Evolution of
 the National Security State: Ubiquitous and Endless,”
 in Andrew Bacevich’s “The Long War: A New History of 
U.S. National Security Policy since World War II,” Columbia
 University Press, 2007. Her most recent publication is
 “The Policy Makers: Shaping American Foreign Policy
from 1947 to the Present,” which she edited and includes
 her essay about Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson. In the
 summer of 2007, she received a four-month fellowship
 in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson Center for
 International Scholars. In 2009, she was awarded the
 Troyer Steele Anderson Prize for her contributions to the
 history profession.

Beloved wife of the late Dr. Paul Nelson, who for many
 years was staff assistant to the House Banking Committee,
 she is survived by her sister, Reba Kasten Nosoff; her two
 sons, Eric and wife Sarah and Michael; and her three
 grandchildren, Faith, Marc and Jeffrey Nelson.

Sally Lick Vick

Sally Lick Vick, 79, died July 23, 2012, in Fort Smith.
She was born Oct. 20, 1932, in Fort Smith to Captilles A.
and Annis Mary Mowen Lick. She was the former
coordinator for Sam Van Inc., a member of the Rosalie
Tilles Foundation, Fort Smith Junior League and
St. John’s Episcopal Church, where she served
many years on the Altar Guild and served several
terms on the vestry.
She is survived by a daughter, Sarah Vick Sullivan
of St. Louis; two sons, Bobby Vick and wife Lee Ann
and Charlie Vick and wife Stephanie, all of Fort
Smith; eight grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Robert
H. “Bob” Vick; a son, Cap Vick; and a sister, Annis Walcott.