Ferguson, Franklin Pierce 1898-1984

FERGUSON, HAMILTON, OAKS, LOGUE, POWERS

Posted By: Bruce Atkinson (email)
Date: 10/30/2007 at 17:16:20

Franklin P. Ferguson
Funeral for Franklin P. Ferguson, husband of Jennie S. Hamilton Ferguson, formerly of Merrill, were held April 28 in State College, Pa.
Born in 1898, Ferguson was the son of Richard and Julia Oaks Ferguson of Hasty, Minn.
Born and raised on a farm, Ferguson started a long career in agriculture as a farmer, following discharge from the Coast Artillery Corps at the end of World War I.
He then accepted a position as a Dairy Herd Improvement Association (DHIA) tester before deciding to seek a college education. From 1925 to 1929 he completed three years of high school as well as four years of college work to qualify for a bachelor’s degree in agricultural journalism at Iowa State University.
He was assistant bulletin editor at Iowa State for a year and then for eight years was a livestock market reporter and field editor for the Journal Stockman in Omaha.
Mr. Ferguson joined the College of Agriculture staff at Penn State in 1938. For 25 years he edited 335 Agricultural Experiment Station bulletins, as well as a large number of other publications ranging from pamphlets to books. He helped to start the Experiment Station’s Progress Report series in 1948 and published 250 of these.
In 1953 he started the College of Agriculture’s research quarterly, “Science for the Farmer,” more recently published as “Science in Agriculture.”
Mr. Ferguson’s color photograph of corn leaves taken in 1945 and showing nutrient deficiencies, was used by over a dozen U.S. and three foreign publishers of books, magazines, and educational pamphlets. One company printed a half million copies.
A Pennsylvania geology map, assembled by soil technologist Howard W. Higbee, proved especially challenging. Mr. Ferguson also worked with Mr. Higbee on publishing a generalized soil map of the Commonwealth, the most detailed ever published.
At the time of his retirement, Frank Ferguson was quoted as saying that his major achievements came in “editing or rewriting scientific programs to make them more readable and still acceptable to the scientist who originally wrote them.
Surviving in addition to his wife, are two daughters and a son. Delores is married to Harold W. Logue and they live in North Olmsted, Ohio. Mary is married to David R. Powers and they live in Charleston, W.V. Son Wayne lives in Santa Fe, N.M.
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LeMars Daily Sentinel (LeMars, Plymouth County, Iowa) of 04/??/1984.