Ole Henry Vernon Stalheim (1917-2010)

STALHEIM, ELVERSON

Posted By: Ames Tribune
Date: 11/19/2010 at 08:48:03

THE AMES TRIBUNE, Ames, Story County, Iowa, Thursday, November 18, 2010.

Ole Henry Vernon Stalheim was born to Henry and Ellen Stalheim on Sept. 23, 1917, in Garretson, S.D., the oldest of three children. Ole passed away Monday, Nov. 15, 2010, in Ames. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Friday, Nov. 19, at Stevens Funeral Home, 607 28th St., in Ames. A graveside service will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 20, in Garretson Cemetery in Garretson, S.D.

Ole was raised a farm boy, graduating from Garretson High School during the Depression in 1936. He worked in the Black Hills with the CCC and then started college at South Dakota State. He finished his veterinary studies at Texas A&M University with a DVM degree in 1940.

Following graduation, he returned to South Dakota to marry Vivian E. Elverson and start a family of four children. He established a large-animal veterinary practice and began farming in Vermillion, S.D. After 17 years of practice, he returned to college, earning first a master’s degree at the University of South Dakota and then a Ph.D. in bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin in 1963. He accepted a research position at the National Animal Disease Laboratory in Ames in 1964. He was very active in his federal career, publishing more than 140 research papers, traveling to Africa, Asia and Europe for the agriculture department.

In 1970, wanting to share his expertise where it was needed, he took a sabbatical to work as a veterinary missionary in the Sudan. This was followed by two decades of teaching and research assignments in Ethiopia, the Sudan, Estonia, China and Turkey. He received three Fulbright scholarships to teach overseas, numerous awards from the AVMA, and was recognized as a Lifetime Scholar by the University of South Dakota Alumni Association. An outspoken opponent to nuclear war, he was a co-founding member of the Veterinary Academy on Disaster Medicine.

Following his retirement from NADL in 1986, he returned to playing saxophone with church bands at Bethesda Lutheran and joined the local coffee klatch, renewing old friendships and gaining new friends. He had a passion for conservation, planting many black walnut plantations in Iowa and South Dakota, while still continuing his farm operations in South Dakota. He was fortunate to have a yet another career teaching veterinary history for many years at Iowa State University. The ISU Press published his textbook, still in use, titled “The Winning of Animal Health.” This was followed by three other published books. He wrote and self-published “The History of NADL” when he was 88. It sold out in a matter of days and garnered a front-page story with his picture in The Ames Tribune.

He is survived by one daughter, Julie Ann, of Mankato, Minn.; three sons, Alan, of Carpenteria, Calif., David, of Denver, Colo., and Jon, of Sioux Falls, S.D.; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Condolences may be left at www.stevensmemorialchapel.com.

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