[Iesaf_selkirk] Fw: [Iesaf_section] Dick Bingham

[lynn kaney]

Hi All, if you could forward this to your members. Dick Bingham recently passed away. I am pasting an obituary that I sent for the forestry source. 

Terrie 


Richard T. (Dick) Bingham, of Juliaetta, died Saturday, Dec. 18, 2010, at Good Samaritan Village in Moscow. He was 92. 

Dick was born March 1, 1918, in New York City to Isaac Sabin and Margaret Anstee Martino Bingham. 

He attended grade school and high school in Boonton and Mountain Lakes, N.J., leaving there in September 1936 to attend the then-School of Forestry of the University of Idaho in Moscow. He graduated in 1940 with a bachelor of science degree in forestry, and continued in graduate school in 1941 and '42 to attain the degree of master of science in forest pathology. He was elected to the Forestry Honor Society XT Sigma Phi, while in grad school. 

He commenced forestry research in Spokane in 1946, and almost all of his research was concerned with controlling the white pine blister rust disease. From 1950 through 1975, mostly while stationed at the Forest Service Forestry Science Laboratory at Moscow, he pioneered in white pine tree breeding toward genetic control of the blister rust disease. Here he worked closely with Forest Service and other scientists throughout the United States and the world. Early research results were promising and he was selected for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Superior Service Award. In 1974, his entire research unit received a similar award. Dick authored or co-authored more than 40 scientific publications on blister rust, white pine silviculture, white pine rust resistance, and lately local flora and plant check lists.  Another contribution of his research was to establish a seed orchard in the late 50's on the University of Idaho campus, today the R.T. Bingham White Pine Seed Orchard is being managed as a part of a co-operative among several agencies who have a long-term goal of restoring western white pine throughout the forests of the Inland Northwest. 

He has served as chairman of the Inland Empire Chapter of the Society of American Foresters, as well as of the society's working group on forest tree breeding. In 1989, he was elected a fellow of the society, and also received the society's Barrington Moore Memorial Award, for distinguished individual research in the biological sciences. He also was active in the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, and presented research papers in the union's meetings at Copenhagen, Denmark and Lake City, Fla. In 1969, he was appointed scientific director of the NATO-IUFRO Advanced Study Institute covering rust resistance in forest trees. 

Probably his most cherished honor was his selection as the 1984 Honor Alumnus of UI College of Forestry, Wildlife and Range Sciences. 


Theresa "Terrie" Jain (Ph.D)
Research Forester
1221 S. Main
Moscow, Idaho 83843
Office: 208.883.2331 Cell: 208.691.7606
Fax: 208.883.2318
email: tjain at fs.fed.us


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