APS Foundation Announces Named Travel Funds  

The APS Foundation is pleased to announce the establishment of four new named student travel funds for Zahir Eyal, Janell Stevens Johnk, Harry E. Wheeler, and Virology.

The Janell Stevens Johnk Student Travel Fund has been established by colleagues and friends of Dr. Johnk in her honor and memory. Dr. Johnk was a plant pathologist at the Texas A&M University Dallas Research and Extension Center who died in an automobile accident in 1998 en route to a field day.

The Zahir Eyal Student Travel Fund has been established by colleagues, friends, and family members in honor and memory of Dr. Zahir for his many accomplishments and contributions to plant pathology. At the time of his death, Dr. Zahir was director of the Institute for Cereal Crop Improvement at Tel Aviv University.

Colleagues, former students, and friends have established the Harry E. Wheeler Student Travel Fund in honor and memory of Dr. Wheeler, who retired from a long and distinguished career as professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Kentucky.

The Virology Student Travel Fund has been established to support participation in the annual APS meeting by exceptional students working in the area of plant virology. This is the first fund established by a group of individuals to support research in a particular area.

In each case, the interest from the funds will be used to assist students in attending the APS Annual Meeting. The first awards from each of these funds will be made to students attending the 2000 APS Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA. Guidelines for applying for these travel awards appears in this issue of Phytopathology News. Biographical or program sketches follow for each new fund.

Dr. Janell Stevens Johnk (1963-1998) was Extension Plant Pathologist for the Texas Agricultural Extension Service at the Texas A&M University Dallas Research and Extension Center in Dallas, TX. She received a Ph.D. degree in plant pathology with a minor in chemistry at the University of Minnesota in 1993 before joining the faculty in Dallas. She applied her limitless energy and enthusiasm to establish statewide responsibilities and regional leadership for extension programs on diseases of turfgrass, shade trees, and retail and landscape ornamentals. She also developed regional programs on diseases of cotton, sorghum, peanuts, and small grains during the short time she was at TAMU. As the first urban plant pathology specialist in the state, Dr. Johnk forged a variety of cooperative relationships with golf course superintendents, municipal foresters, garden clubs, arborists, and influential clientele in the Dallas area. Dr. Johnk was extremely active in the affairs of APS as a member of a variety of ad hoc and standing committees. Her selfless drive to help people solve problems, her intense commitment to our discipline, her wonderful sense of humor, and her dedication to family will forever inspire all who have had the good fortune to have worked with her.

Dr. Zahir Eyal was born in Israel on October 6, 1936, and died at his home in Tel Aviv on July 30, 1999. After elementary and secondary education in Israel, Zahir came to the United States, earning his B.Sc. degree from Oklahoma State University and a Ph.D. degree from Rutgers, followed by a post-doctoral term at Purdue. His work on Septoria of cereals began when he joined the Department of Botany at Tel Aviv University in 1967. Professor Eyal also became an enthusiastic teacher of undergraduate and graduate students. During his tenure at Tel Aviv University, Professor Eyal served two terms as Head of the Department of Botany, 1984-1987 and 1992-1994. Dr. Eyal's research and outreach programs incorporated ideas that were new to his country, were solidly anchored in basic science, and were innovative to the end, resulting in improvements in wheat production in Israel and having positive effects on cereal improvement programs throughout the world. At the time of his death, Dr. Eyal was director of the Institute for Cereal Crop Improvement at Tel Aviv University where the germplasm of wild ancestors of cultivated small grains are being preserved, characterized, and utilized in breeding improved cultivars. Dr. Eyal rarely missed an annual APS meeting and was elected Fellow of APS in 1995 in recognition of his outstanding contributions to plant pathology.

Dr. Harry E. Wheeler was professor of plant pathology at the University of Kentucky. He was born January 25, 1919, and died July 12, 1999. He received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, where he also served on the faculty for 17 years. Dr. Wheeler conducted pioneering investigations in the fields of fungal sexuality, including a landmark cytological study on the sexual development of Glomerella, as well as the physiology of parasitism. In this latter arena, he was among the first to use radioisotopes to study host-parasite physiology. Realizing conclusive evidence was lacking that plant pathogens produce toxins that incite disease development, he used victorin as a tool to investigate the toxin theory, ultimately developing the "pathotoxin hypothesis." His 1975 book, Plant Pathogenesis, introduced the concept of the physiological syndrome as an ordered sequence of changes characteristic of many plant diseases. Dr. Wheeler was a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society, and a recipient of the Southern Division of APS Outstanding Plant Pathologist Award. Dr. Wheeler is remembered for his scrupulous honesty and his rigorous standards for scientific study, from which many benefited.

The Virology Student Travel Award was established in 1999 to support the participation of exceptional student(s) in the area of plant virology to the APS Annual Meeting. Since the science of virology was founded in 1898 with seminal studies on tobacco mosaic virus, viruses have played a central role in understanding how all pathogens cause disease and as tools to study the biology of the plant cell. Because we have very few means to control many of the diseases caused by plant viruses, every year there are devastating effects on human society resulting in inadequate nutrition or loss of income for growers.

The spread of significant virus diseases on crop and ornamental plants worldwide continues in association with global trade and travel. Therefore, a more complete basic and applied understanding of viruses and their interactions with host plants and biological vectors is needed to provide new strategies to control important virus diseases throughout the world. This travel award was established to facilitate student travel to the APS national meeting so that students in plant virology would have the opportunity to present the findings from their studies and interact with virologists from around the world.

Those that contributed to the establishment and development of this fund as of September 1999 include: Stella Coakley, Carrie Dooh, Rose Gergerich, John Sherwood, Sue Tolin, Milt Zaitlin, and the Virology Working Group. Recently, many of you received an invitation to participate in the development of this fund. It is hoped that members will find this a worthwhile endeavor and will give the development of this award full consideration to facilitate active participation of students with an interest in virology in the APS annual meeting.

Each recipient of a named travel award receives a one-page biographical sketch of the individual being honored. For awards sponsored by groups of individuals, a sketch of the reason for the fund will be provided. All students who receive a travel award will have a special designation by their paper title listed in the program book. In 1999, 26 travel awards of $400 each were made with funds from APS and the APS Foundation. These new funds bring the total number of named awards to 18. A minimum of $2,500 is needed to establish a new award. At the current award level, it is estimated that a fund of $4,000 or more is needed to allow an award to be made every other year from the income on the investment.

It is possible to add to any of the named accounts. Donation checks should be payable to the APS Foundation and sent to APS Headquarters with a note indicating the appropriate fund for deposit of your donation. The individual or family of the individual being honored will be notified when additional gifts are made to the fund, although the amount of the gift will not be specified. Donors will also receive acknowledgment of their donation from the Foundation. Additional information on the Named Student Travel Award program may be obtained from Stella Coakley by e-mail at coakleys@bcc.orst.edu or by phone at 541/737-5264. Information on this and other Foundation activities are also available on APSnet.

Also in this issue: APS Foundation Student Travel Grants 2000 From Science and Society to Scientists in Society New Phytopathology Editorial Board Announced International Association for Plant Protection Inaugurated 91st Annual APS Report FFA Honors APS Soilborne Plant Diseases Interest Group Meets Pioneer Registers Diagnostics Group to ISO 9001 Shurtleff Awarded Stakman Award Meetings People

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The American Phytopathological Society