In memoriam

Larry Lyckle Boersma

ASA and SSSA Fellow and former SSSA president Lyckle “Larry” Boersma, 90, of Corvallis, OR, passed away 23 Aug. 2020. He was born 16 Apr. 1930 in Oudega, province of Frieslan, the Netherlands. He went to grade school in the Netherlands during the German occupation and received his B.S. degree (1953) and M.S. degree (1955) from the National Agricultural College of the Netherlands, majoring in Land Reclamation and Land Reform. Boersma was named research associate in the Department of Agronomy at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY and graduated with his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1959.

After graduation, Boersma worked as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois where he met his soon-to-be wife Carole Truckenbrod. In 1960, he accepted a position in the Department of Soil Science at Oregon State University.

Boersma loved his job. He was a Fellow AAAS and was named Distinguished Professor in 1994. He was involved in many professional societies and university committees and visited 19 countries in a professional capacity. He was involved in writing more than 100 papers in refereed journals and more than 70 technical reports.

Boersma loved hiking, mountain climbing, scuba diving, photography, and reading and was known for his unique sense of humor, adventurous spirit, keen intellect, and eagerness for learning. He touched the lives of a great number of people around the world and made a deep impression on those who knew his love.

Boersma was preceded in death by his parents and his brothers Yme, Ona, Yke, and Stoffel. Larry is deeply missed by his wife Carole, son Mark (Danna), daughter Heidi (Brad), and grandchildren Mitchell, Jonathan, Emma, and Luke. He is also deeply missed by his surviving brothers Jan, Wybren, Hendrik, sister Renee, and numerous nieces and nephews.

Carl S. Hoveland

Carl S. Hoveland, 93, passed away in Athens, GA on 4 July 2021. He was born 25 Oct. 1927 on a dairy farm near Sand Creek in northwestern Wisconsin. All four of his grandparents came from southern Norway, and Norwegian was Hoveland’s first language. After education in a one-room elementary school and high school, he obtained B.S. and M.S. degrees in soils at the University of Wisconsin, after which he served in the U.S. Marine Corps-Aviation. He worked for three years as a forage agronomist at a Texas A&M research station in southwest Texas and then earned his Ph.D. in forage and animal nutrition at the University of Florida.

His 47-year professional career was in forage research, teaching, and extension at Auburn University (22 years) and as the Terrell Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia (25 years). He was a Fellow of ASA, CSSA, and AAAS and was a Silver Medallion Award of the American Forage and Grassland Council.

His career included international travel for consulting, invited lectures, study periods in New Zealand, and teaching in China and the Republic of Georgia. He was proud that he co-authored (with Don Ball and Garry Lacefield) the book Southern Forages, for livestock producers (now in its fifth edition, 2015) and translated into Spanish and Chinese.

After retirement in 2006, he wrote and published a book of childhood memoirs (Sand Creek – A Childhood Legacy) a book of photos from his world travels, and personal books on 28 years with his first wife (Dorothy) and 23 years with late wife (Patricia). He loved classical music and enjoyed concerts of choral, symphonic, and opera at the excellent University of Georgia Music School where he established perpetual graduate student fellowships. He was an active member the Episcopal Church, practicing his faith by loving and giving to others.

Hoveland is survived by three children and five grandchildren and by his sister, Hannah Marie (Gaylon), in Whitewater, WI. He was pre-deceased by his beloved wives Dorothy (1979) and Patricia (2012).