Frank Lang

Frank Lang served three terms as president of NPSO (1985-1986, 1979-1981), was a “Founding Father” of the Siskiyou Chapter (1977), co-edited the Bulletin from 1979-1981, and was the first editor of Kalmiopsis (1991- 1994). He has won many awards for his research, publications and volunteer work, including 1990 “Volunteer of the Year” for The Nature Conservancy of Oregon. Frank was born and raised in Olympia, Washington. His life’s ambition was to be a biologist and he was fortunate that his Boy Scout merit badge counselor was naturalist Margaret McKenny, author of The Savory Wild Mushroom.

A good part of his high school years were spent on field trips with Margaret and her friends, a highlight of which was meeting Roger Tory Peterson. He majored in botany at Oregon State College and there met his wife, Suzanne. He worked filing specimens and drawing plants for his systematic botany instructor, Dr. Albert N. Steward, who was director of the herbarium. Frank planned to pursue his interest in ferns in graduate school at the University of Washington, but was diverted by Dr. Arthur Kruckeberg to determine why Douglasfir was invading the gravelly prairies of western Washington.

After concluding that the cause was lack of regular fires since Indian times, Frank decided it was time to seek a PhD. He met T.M.C. Taylor at the University of British Columbia, who suggested a taxonomic treatment of the Polypodium vulgare complex. Frank’s thesis, completed in 1965, worked out the evolutionary relationship and taxonomy of three taxa using comparative morphology, cytology and geographical-ecological criteria. This work was later confirmed by DNA and isozyme analyses. Frank was professor of botany at Southern Oregon College from 1966 to 1996, teaching botany, ecology, and botanical illustration. He also served as department chair and chairman of the Faculty Senate.

He taught biological illustration at the Malheur Field Station for eight summers. Since 1989 he has produced the weekly radio program, Nature Notes, broadcast on Jefferson Public Radio. He served for six years on the editorial board of Madroño, eleven years on the board of directors for Crater Lake Natural History Association, three years on the Board of Editors for OSU Press (the final year as chairman), and the Table Rock Preserve Board for The Nature Conservancy. He took two yearlong sabbaticals: one to learn medical illustration, the other as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Gray Herbarium. As impressive as this list accomplishments is, Frank is most pleased with his forty-year-plus marriage, two wonderful children, and a host of students who took up botany as a career.

– Joan Seevers, Siskiyou Chapter