Gordon B. Strayer

STRAYER, NOTHNAGLE, STRONG

Posted By: Sarah Fletcher (email)
Date: 2/24/2016 at 09:13:50

Gordon B. Strayer, 92, died February 11, 2016, at Windmill Manor, Coralville, Ia. A memorial service will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to University of Iowa Foundation for the Gordon Strayer Scholarship Fund, which benefits journalism students, or to the Unitarian Universalist Society of Iowa City Memorial Fund.

Strayer retired in 1990 as director of health center information and communication at The University of Iowa, where he had been employed since enrolling as a graduate student in journalism in 1949. He was appointed university news editor in 1950, became director of university relations in 1964, and assumed his position in the UI health center in 1975.

Strayer was active in public relations professional organizations throughout his career and during retirement. He was a founding member of three of the four Iowa chapters of Public Relations Society of America, in which he held various offices. He served on the national boards of directors of both PRSA and the American College Public Relations Association, and was an early member of the national Higher Education Roundtable. In 1997 he was inducted into PRSA’s College of Fellows, which fewer than two per cent of the organization’s 17,000 members are invited to join.

After retiring from The University of Iowa Strayer taught a writing course for two years at Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, then helped found and served two years as advisor to the student newspaper, the Mount Mercy Times.

Born in western Canada to American parents Carl and Nina, he lived and worked on the family’s Saskatchewan wheat farm until enrolling in high school at Avon, Ill. Following graduation in 1941 he served as a machinist’s apprentice at Caterpillar Tractor Co. in Peoria, Ill, until enlisting in a U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve flight training program in 1943.

Subsequent military service included an Army Specialized Training Program unit at the University of Chicago, a Signal Corps school in Missouri, and duty with 101st and 82nd Airborne Infantry divisions in France, Germany and Austria.

After completing his service in April, 1946, he enrolled at The University of Northern Iowa. He met his future wife, Faye Hyde, while working on the college newspaper, The College Eye. Strayer served as editor of that paper from 1946 to 1948, and he was student body president from 1948 to 1949. On June 4, 1948, he married Faye Hyde, who had previously transferred to The University of Iowa.

For some years Strayer served as president of the Memorial Society of the Iowa River Valley, a consumer information group, and was secretary and board member of its national coordinating group, the Funeral and Memorial Society of America. He was active in the Unitarian Universalist Society of Iowa City, serving on three successive ministerial search committees and as long-time chair of the Society’s endowment committee.

Following its founding in 1995 Strayer became a member of the University of Iowa Retirees Association’s executive committee and served as editor of its monthly newsletter, The Gray Hawk. He was a member of the UI President’s Club, as is his wife.

Strayer book, Snippets: A Memoir, was published by Xlibris in 2014.

Gordon was passionate, persuasive and tireless in pursuit of the various causes in which he was engaged. He will be remembered for his writing and storytelling as well as his characteristic dry humor which lightened countless moments at home, at work, and in all other areas of his life.

He is survived by his wife, Faye Hyde Strayer, daughter Hilary Strayer and her husband, Peter Nothnagle (Iowa City) and son Scott and friend Anna Strong (San Jose, Cal.), as well as brothers Allan and wife Margaret (Westlake Village, Cal.); Barry and wife Eleanor (Ottawa, Ont.), and Richard (Saskatoon, Sask.), and their families.

The family is deeply grateful for the compassionate and expert care provided by Dr. Richard Dobyns as well as the many professionals at Windmill Pointe, Hawthorne Inn, and Windmill Manor who participated in Gordon’s care.

Lensing Funeral & Cremation Service
 

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