Dr. Clarence W. Minkel

1928-2014

Dr. Clarence W. Minkel, whose life reflected a quest to see as much as possible of this earthly world, passed on to the heavenly world on September 22, 2014, offering him an entirely new, beautiful world to explore.

Dr. Minkel was born to a farming family in Austin, Minnesota on February 9, 1928. After graduating from high school, he served in the U.S. Army in the U.S. and Japan from 1945 to 1947. He then began college and earned his Ph.D. in Geography from Syracuse University. Professionally he ultimately rose to become a world renowned academician and geographer reaching an elevated status of respect globally in his field. In the years between 1973 and 1979, he was Acting Dean of the Graduate School at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. His next position was the Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee, followed by serving as Vice Provost, and later concurrently serving as Associate Vice Chancellor, Acting Dean of the College of Nursing, and Interim Director of the School of Information Sciences. Continually throughout these years he was also a professor of his beloved field of geography.

Dr. Minkel's accomplishments, leadership, and experiences spanned many continents and positively impacted numerous countries and their populations. In 1998, he was appointed by the U.S. Department of State to negotiate a settlement of a 100-year border dispute between Peru and Ecuador, which he achieved. He was also active, recognized, and often honored for his work throughout Latin America, as well as in China, Canada, Africa, and Indonesia. He was the Field Director for an MSU project with the Ministry of Education and Culture for Development of Graduate Education in the Agricultural Sciences at twelve Brazilian universities. For nine years he served as a reviewer of grant proposals for the National Science Foundation, and for eight years he served in the same capacity for the National Geographic Society Research Award program. He was an author and consultant for Encyclopedia Britannica for 28 years and Compton's Encyclopedia for 13 years. He co-authored the 578 page textbook "Latin America," which was used in college classrooms across the country for many years. Dr. Minkel was fluent and published in both the Spanish and Portuguese languages.

As a citizen of the world, Dr. Minkel lived at times in Guatemala, Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Japan, and Indonesia. He traveled to every country in North, Central, and South America; China, Japan, Indonesia, and South Asia; Western and Southern Europe; Australia and New Zealand; thirty African countries; and Antarctica. Over a 50 year span, he visited every one of the over 3100 counties in the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. The last county he visited was a leper colony in Hawaii.

People truly enjoyed spending time with Dr. Minkel. In addition to his intellectual insights, he also had a great sense of humor—a subtle wit. As his five children grew up with him, when the family traveled by car, he never took a freeway, and he educated them as to what they were seeing in agriculture, land forms, bodies of water, and more. He was a physical fitness role model for them, always traveling with a jump rope and remarkably never missing a single day of jumping rope, seven days a week, whether in a jungle or in a city, over the course of 25 years.

Dr. Minkel was preceded in death by his parents Rudolph and Lenora Minkel, his sister Luella Watson, and his brother Lloyd Minkel. He is survived by his loving and very proud family, including his wife Phyllis; his five children, Thomas Minkel (Jackie), Sandra Topper (Jim), Theresa Giroux (Tom), Lorraine Ware (Phil), and Joanna Hogan (Dennis); twelve grandchildren and three great grandchildren; his former wife, Jeanette; and his brother Leonard. He will be fondly remembered by his best friend of 50 years, Dr. Robert Thomas and his wife Dorothy, close friends Domingo and Marta Balcarso and family, MSU geographer Bruce Pigozzi, and a host of academic fellows around the world.

Dr. Minkel's funeral service will be held on Friday, September 26 at 12:00 p.m. noon at Gorsline Runciman Funeral Home, 1730 E. Grand River Avenue, East Lansing, Michigan. The family will receive friends one hour prior to the service at the funeral home. Burial will take place at East Lawn Memory Gardens, 2400 Bennett Road, Okemos, MI, immediately following the service.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Lori Mayor Re-Entry Women’s Graduate Fellowship, Attention Joy DeSensia, University of Tennessee Graduate School, 111 Student Services Bldg., Knoxville, TN 37996-0211

On-line memories and condolences may be shared with the family at www.greastlansing.com