| Summary: | Letter dated December 1973 from "Charlie" (Charles A. Black) at Ames, Iowa, with Christmas news letter, including news at his department at Iowa State University as well as family news 62!i Agg Avenue Ames, Iowa 50010 December, 1973 As 1973 draws to a close, it is a pleasure to send you special greetings and a brief summary of events during the year. In the Department, the academic staff has remained stable. In the secretarial staff, Amy (McLaughlin) Groth retired after long service to the Department, I believe she started before 1930, predating even me (1937). She and her husband are renting their house in Ames and are moving to a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, Dr. de Mooy's position in soil fertility field research has still not been filled, and so it appears we have lost it. Ann Frey (Mrs. Kenneth Frey) suffered a stroke last summer and still does not have the use of one arm. Dr. Pierre is convalescing from a serious operation. He is getting along well. True to form, he had several people listen to a paper in which he was interested at the annual society meetings in Las Vegas so they sould report to him. The doctors told him he should count on being out of the office for at least three weeks, which was hard for him to take. But he rationalized that he could do some work at home before returning to the office. We have a new Dean of Agriculture, Lee Kolmer, who was formerly Director of Extension at Oregon State University. Before that, he was in Extension Administration at Iowa State. He is a more outward-looking man than his predecessor, Dean Andre, as evidenced by his employing a person to supervise international work in agriculture and his starting a World Food Institute. Dr. Walter Wedin, of our Department, has been named head. He spends half-time on this position and half-time in the Department. After our precipitous drop in graduate enrollment in the Department last year, we have held steady. I counted 87 graduate students enrolled in the fall quarter this year, which compares with 86 last year. In contrast, the undergraduate enrollment in agriculture at Iowa State is at an all-time high. The job situation these days seems much better for graduates in crops than in soils. We have one M.S. student in s oils who lacks a job, but all others are placed. I now have only one graduate student, the smallest number I have had since 19U6, when I started with Mohamed £id. Part of the time I didn't have even this student. He spent about five months at Barrow, Alaska, working on soil phosphorus behavior in tundra soils as part of the International Biological Program. He returned about November 1 and will be working again on his thesis. He gave a paper at the society meetings in Las Vegas. Most of my time during the year was spent on the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology. The organization now includes eleven agricultural science society members, twenty-two supporting and sustaining members, and more than one thousand individual members. We still don't have the funds needed to employ staff, but we have had enough to get started on the activities for which the organization was established. Since last March, we have LA Ah*** /AAOA fJyU^wiQ ^AkwL 2- been busily engaged in supplying information on agricultural science and technology to Congress, the Office of Management and ^udget, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the rood and Drug Administration. In October, we sponsored a symposium entitled "A Pesticide Report to the Nation" and a "Pesticide Dial-ogue" in which twenty university scientists knowledgeable in pesticides answered questions telephoned in, toll free, by people all over the United States. These two events were held concurrently in Chicago• I finished editing the book on "Soils Derived from Volcanic Ash in Japan" and sent the manuscript to the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo in Mexico City, where it will be published in English and Spanish. I haven't heard from them for months and do not know how far along they are on the project. At home, the year has been uneventful (there hasn't been much home life). Daughter Carol is still in lies Moines, where she continues her work in occupational therapy with the State of Iowa. ^>he does extension-type work with hospitals and nursing homes. Her husband is doing his residency in pediatrics in a hospital in Des Moines, daughter Marilyn is no longer a farm wife. Her husband is now in law school at Creighton University in Omaha. She is working in the library at the University to help make ends meet. Son Richard is still in Corpus Christi, where he has now advanced to the position of senior geological engineer with the Schlumberger Well Purveying Corporation. All the children were here briefly at Homecoming this fall. Marjorie keeps busy with church and other volunteer activities. We hope you will stop to see us if your travels bring you near Ames. Best wishes and good health for 197Uo Sincerely
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