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01/02/2015

Obituary for Professor Loren D. Reid


Obituary for Professor Loren D. Reid

1905 - 2014


Dr. Loren D. Reid passed away on December 25, 2014 at the age of 109. In 1932, at the University of Iowa, Loren received one of the first Ph.D.’s granted in Speech. Dr. Reid joined the Department of Speech and Dramatic Art (now the Department of Communication) at the University of Missouri in 1944 as Professor of Speech, just four years after the Department was founded; and he remained a member of the Mizzou faculty until his retirement in 1975.
 
Professor Reid served as Department Chair at MU from 1947-1952 and again from 1966-1967. His leadership of the Communication discipline included service as both President and Executive Secretary of the National Communication Association (NCA) and Executive Secretary of the Central States Communication Association (CSCA). In 2002 he received the NCA Mentor Award, and in 2005 he was inducted into the CSCA Hall of Fame.
 
In 1995, in honor of his 90th birthday, the MU Department of Communication created The Loren Reid Library in Switzler Hall, home of the MU Department of Communication; and in 2005 on the occasion of his 100th birthday the Department established The Loren Reid Lecture Series that brings back to campus the Department’s distinguished doctoral graduates. In fact, at 107, Dr. Reid was last on campus when he attended the 2012 Reid Lecture delivered by his former student and past NCA President Dr. Anita Taylor. The Department also has both undergraduate and graduate student awards named in his honor, including The Loren Reid Outstanding Senior Award for Department Service and Leadership and The Loren Reid Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award.
 
Throughout his remarkable life and career, Professor Reid embodied all that is noble about our profession. Through his teaching and scholarship, his service, and his work with generations of students, he helped birth and pioneer the Communication discipline. Truly, in all that he did, he always exemplified a “good man, speaking well.”

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