In Memory of Professor Don Kirkham:

It was 1986. Iowa State was like a dream come true — to actually be a student in the same department (agronomy) where a legend was still living. He was known among many circles as the “Father of Soil Physics.” For me, it was a thrill to know that he was still around. I boasted about it to my colleagues back home. Then one day, he stopped me and my ex-wife and asked if we were new students. He said he remembered our home country, Lebanon, where “The land and its people are beautiful.”

As graduate students, we learned the discipline by watching him come back into his office early in the evening and out of it late at night. No strange or intimidating looks as he modestly walked by, a very tall man with his head bowed to the ground while we wondered if he was looking at the water beneath that ground and trying to solve its mysteries. We also felt a comradeship. He was actually one of us — the working class, a professor with our work schedule!

But what we learned to know about him and value the most was that profound humility that made us wonder and speculate about his religious beliefs. What sort of God did he believe in?

In 1987, I left ISU with a lump in my throat that distracted me from pursuing the answer. Last week, I learned of his departure from the earth that he loved so passionately, but I am still wondering who his God is. Will He make scientists like Don Kirkham any more?

Hadi Tabbara

Research assistant

Agriculture and biosystem engineering