In Memorial

Robert W. Gooding

Sadly, the oat world lost a friend when Robert W. Gooding passed away on May 20, 2002 after a two-year illness. Rob was born Sept. 27, 1950, in Lima Ohio. He received his BA in Botany from Miami University, Oxford Ohio in 1973 and married Sandee Pudlish in September of that year. He began his breeding career in 1974 at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center/Ohio State University in Wooster OH in as an agricultural research technician.

In 1977 he began his long association with Howard Lafever as a technician with the small grains breeding program. Rob obtained his masters in crop breeding from The Ohio State University in 1983 under Hal’s direction. That year he initiated the OARDC/OSU Oat breeding program which evolved into one of the largest oat breeding efforts in the U.S. by 1993. He made many friends during the initiation of the oat program when he traveled around the country to obtain germplasm. The release of ‘Armor’ spring oat in 1991 was the first oat cultivar released from Ohio State since 1929. Armor is still the main oat grown in Ohio. Rob’s oat breeding efforts also resulted in the release of spring oat cultivars, ‘Burton’ and ‘Chairman’. Unfortunately, funding constraints resulted in the termination of the oat breeding program in 1999.

Rob also ran portions of the soft red winter wheat breeding program, first at OARDC/OSU and then with Hal Lafever at the Sunbeam Extract Company, Wooster OH. During that time and earlier in his career, he contributed to the development of several major soft red winter wheat cultivars including Cardinal, Dynasty, Freedom, and Hopewell. Throughout his career, Rob was at the forefront of computer assisted data entry and analysis. Rob wrote Fortran programs in the early 1980s and constructed the program web site in the 1990s to analyze and present breeding program data.

Rob had a passionate regard for public education and served on the school board for the Loudonville Perrysville Unified school district for several years. Those of us who worked with Rob will miss his devotion to his family, Sandee and his daughter Jane, his organizational skills, his appreciation of art, photography, and literature - especially the tragic Irish sort, and his sense of humor.

Memorial contributions may be made to Loudonville-Perrysville Schools Endowment Fund, 210 E. Main St., Loudonville, OH 44842.

Contributed by Kimberly Garland Campbell email: mailto:kgcamp@wsu.edu

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