Herschel Leonard Bricker (1984)

BRICKER, TAYLOR, KOHL

Posted By: Pat Hochstetler (email)
Date: 1/25/2009 at 16:27:51

Earlham Echo – May 1984
Earlham, Iowa

This article taken from:
The Bangor Daily News, Bangor, Maine
Tuesday, May 22, 1984

FARMINGTON: Professor Herschel L. Bricker, 78, of Farmington, died May 20, 1984 at his residence. Professor Bricker was born in Earlham, Iowa, May 22, 1905, the son of Augustus M. and Mary Ella (Taylor) Bricker, and received his education in the local school system. He married the former Cecelia Kohl in Portland, November 10, 1944. He had a distinguished career in the fine arts profession, commencing with an A.B. degree, received from Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1928. He won a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to study under leading Broadway producers, directors and playwrights at Cleveland Playhouse and Passadena Playhouse during 1936 and 1937. Before retiring as Professor Emeritus in 1970 from the University of Maine at Orono. He held the following posts during his career: head of the theater branch, U.S. Army University, England, 1945; theater consultant, U.S. Forces in Europe, 1946; founder and director, Camden Hills Theater School, 1947-1957; president of the American Theater Association , 1943-1944, and was a member of the National Theater Conference. He was also a member of the Arts Institute of Western Maine, which he founded in 1973; the board of directors of the Arts Alliance in Education and the board for the Maine Commission of the Arts and Humanities. His work gained him the arts award, State of Maine Arts Commission, 1976; the special service award, University of Maine at Farmington, 1977; the alumni merit award, Coe College, 1978 and a Doctor of Fine Arts degree, Colby College, 1977. In 1959, Professor Bricker went on a Masque Theater tour through West Germany and Northern Italy, to entertain the American Soldiers.

Among his other accomplishments were two honorary doctorate degrees from Colby College in 1970 and the University of Maine at Orono in 1983. He had written many articles for educational journals and periodicals and was the author of Our Theatre Today in 1936. He was the director of General Mark Clark’s Army Day Show in Vienna, 1947. He is listed in Who’s Who in the East, American Scholars; Who’s Who in Education, Directory of International Biography; Who’s Who of the Theater and the International Register of Profiles. He began his teaching career as an instructor at the University of Maine at Orono in 1928, retiring in 1970 as Professor Emeritus. In 1970, he was asked by President Elnar Olsen of the University of Maine, Farmington, to organize the theater into an academic curriculum and was actively engaged at the University of Maine at Farmington until 1974. He was a member of the Old South Congregational Church in Farmington.

He is survived by his wife of Farmington; one son, Gary Robert Bricker of Auburn; one granddaughter, many nieces and nephews. Services were held 10:00 a.m. Wednesday at the Old South Congregational Church, Main Street, Farmington, with the Rev. Richard Waddell officiating. Interment was in Fairview Cemetery, Farmington.