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I was deeply saddened to recently learn of Dr. Hall's passing from the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune's newspaper website preceding the memorial service this past weekend. I extend my sincere condolences and deepest sympathy to Dr. Hall's family. He touched the lives of so many students in very positive ways during his career as an educator at Bowling Green. It was simply a “one-in-a-million” chance that I happened to open the Obituary section of newspaper's website last week and discover the announcement of the memorial service and news regarding his passing.
Dr. Hall was a loyal and supportive mentor to me during my years as a chemistry major at Bowling Green State University from 1960 to 1964. I graduated with the BS degree in chemistry and then completed my PhD at Florida State University in inorganic chemistry. Dr. Hall was my advisor as a chemistry major and I served as his undergraduate teaching assistant in his Physical Chemistry lecture and laboratory during my senior year, setting up experiments, assisting students in the lab, and also grading homework papers from the lecture. I also assisted during his summer NSF programs for high school teachers, and recall vividly, pitching for a ragtag, but proud, intramural chemistry softball team composed of several of the NSF participants and assorted chemistry majors which beat a team composed of outstanding BGSU athletes…what a feather in the cap of the chemistry group! Dr. Hall's instruction in glass-blowing and the use of a glass lathe during my junior physical chemistry laboratory was priceless. It instilled in me a love of working with glass and an appreciation for the skills and handiwork of glassblowers. It served as an important tool in my “laboratory survival kit” in graduate school and later as a young academic researcher. During my senior year at BGSU I fabricated a glass system for Dr. Hall to be used in his new physical chemistry equilibrium experiment; a reaction which I still discuss each year in my General Chemistry lectures. Dr. Hall was very complementary of my work at the time and I took great pride in my creation. However, during a visit to the department a number of years later, and after viewing the glass apparatus still in use in the lab, I understood what an albatross I had created! What I thought was a “work of art” at the time of its' fabrication, took on an entirely different look years later! For him to initially complement me on that work speaks volumes about his encouraging and patient nature. My instructional experiences under Dr. Hall made my transition to a position as a graduate teaching assistant very smooth and successful during my first semester at FSU and played a major role in my choice of academics as a career path. My extensive teaching experiences at BGSU with Dr. Hall and immediate success at FSU, led to my assignment as the TA in a small, super-honors general chemistry lecture section during my second semester in graduate school and the opportunity to present formal lectures. I also performed research with Dr. Hall during the summer involving the “resurrection” of an old mass spectrometer donated to the department and its' use in determining oxygen isotopes ratios. Working with the high voltages led to a few “hair-raising” experiences during this, my first experience with electronics. Dr. Hall's chemical literature course was legendary and my exposure to that course again made the transition to graduate school and library research a breeze. A real sense of “friendly” competition existed between the students in the course and from year to year as to who could compile the most extensive index card file! I recall that those huge card files were maintained in the front office by Ms. Haskins and probably represented the “sacrifice” of several large trees!
I again extend my heartfelt sympathy to Dr. Hall's family and extend my sincere gratitude for his guidance and patient encouragement during my undergraduate years at Bowling Green.
God Bless,
Dr. George O. Evans II
Department of Chemistry
East Carolina University
<gve252@aol.com>
Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 09:26 (EDT)
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