Oliver Russ
Oliver George Russ, weed scientist and professor emeritus of agronomy, died at the age of 94 on February 25, 2015 at Life Care Center of Seneca.
He was born August 10, 1920, on a farm southwest of Kelly, Kansas, the son of George C. and Pauline Wilhelm Russ. He first attended Sunny Knoll School near his home. Later the family moved to the Corning, KS, area where he attended several rural schools before graduating from Corning Rural High School in 1938. After a year of Normal Training, he taught in a rural school south of Sabetha for two years and at Pleasant Ridge School north of Baileyville, Kansas.
On July 7, 1942, he was drafted into the US Army and served in the Medical Corps in the South Pacific with the 27th General Hospital. After his discharge on January 3, 1946, he enrolled at Kansas State Agricultural College and earned a B.S. and a Master’s degree. He began working on the bindweed experiment field at Canton, Kansas, and then opened a new research field near Newton, Kansas. After a year and a half as superintendent of the Mound Valley Branch Experiment Station, he returned to the Manhattan campus in 1965. He continued to work there as an agronomist in weed control research and advising graduate students in weed control research. In 1990 when he retired from Kansas State he moved to Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1996 he moved to Seneca, Kansas.
As a member of the American Bluebird Society, he continued a lifelong interest in bluebirds and in restoring them to northeast Kansas. In recent years, he maintained a 35 nesting-box trail for bluebirds. In addition to building bluebird nesting boxes, he also built other bird houses and bird feeders.
He married Ruth Robison on September 6, 1946 at Corning, Kansas. She died October 17, 1956. On June 17, 1957, he married Marguerite Robison, from Pawnee City, Nebraska.
Survivors include two daughters, Deborah Jo Russ Farwell and her husband Jim Farwell of Lincoln, Nebraska and Deanne Russ of The French West Indies; a sister Irene Mohringer of Holton, Kansas; four grandchildren and three great grandson.
Besides his first wife, Ruth, and his second wife, Marguerite; he was preceded in death by a sister, Alice Hauldren.
Memorials may be sent to Basic Cancer Research at Kansas State University.
Oliver was my major professor for my Master Degree. He was great to work with and I enjoyed my time with him at K-State.
Marguerite read my thesis, and she gave new meaning to “perfection”. She had taught English.
Oliver was a very nice person and great to work with, and I will always have fond memories of working with him.
John Bozarth