Robert Latimer Bates
The Passing of a Renaissance Man
An Appreciation by Peter W. Harben
On the morning of 21 June 1994, three days after his 82nd birthday, Robert Latimer Bates died at Riverside Hospital, Columbus, Ohio. This followed a heart attack at his home in Columbus on June 14.
Bob Bates was a communicator his entire life. Born in Brookings, South Dakota, he was educated at Cornell University and the University of Iowa. Although he started as a junior geologist with the Texas Co. (1938-40), he soon became a teacher as well as a geologist with the New Mexico Bureau of Mines/New Mexico State School of Mines (1941-47). He taught at Newark College, Rutgers University (1947-51) and, from 1951 until his retirement in 1977, Bob taught at Ohio State University after which he became professor emeritus.
In 1950 he began writing a column on geology in Geotimes, the magazine of the American Geological Institute. This column developed into the ever popular "Geological Column" kindly described as "a light-hearted forum for information, opinion, and amusement on science writing and speaking: the use and abuse of English by geologists, engineers, and government agencies". Fear of being named in that devilish column singlehandedly did more for the nation's writing skills than any school could ever achieve!! Pandora's Bauxite: The Best of Bates, a book-length selection from the column, was published by AGI in 1986.
