In Memory of William F. Rapp, Jr.

Authors

Date of this Version

3-2015

Citation

"In Memory of William F. Rapp, Jr.," from Nebraska Bird Review (March 2015) 83(1).

Comments

Copyright 2015 Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union. Used by permission.

Abstract

Former NOU president and Nebraska Bird Review editor William F. Rapp, Jr., passed away on March 13, 2013, in Rochester, New York. Rapp was born in 1918 in Newark, New Jersey, and his interest in birds began during his junior high years. He attended Rutgers University and graduated in 1944 with a degree in entomology and geology. He was on the faculty of Doane College in Crete, Nebraska, where he taught various biology courses and ornithology for nonscience students. He attended his first Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union meeting in 1947. By the next year, he was the editor of the Nebraska Bird Review. Rapp later worked for the Nebraska State Department of Health as a stream biologist and medical entomologist. Among his first projects was collecting blood samples from birds in an attempt to discover how the Western equine encephalitis virus cases that were showing up in western Nebraska were spread. Rapp retired in 1985 and later moved to Pittsford, New York, in the Finger Lakes region, where he continued with his interest in birds as well as entomological studies.