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Jack Heikkenen

Herman J. Heikkenen collapsed in his apartment in Newport News, Virginia, October 16, 2008 and was taken to the hospital. He was diagnosed with acute lukemia and soon entered a hospice.

I returned to Blacksburg from The University of Idaho in '67. I met Jack when I was put in his office in the basement of Price Hall. There were two desks in a hall closet. That's all. We got to know each other fast and had been on parallel life tracks - grumpy or absent father, Eagle scouts, forester educations, US Army Rangers …. But he had been to Korea … I missed that war by months. He had experience in the West; I had just come from there. Unbelievably, I had met his brother in the US Forest Service in Idaho while on a field trip with my students. We taught undergraduate courses, he in forest entomology, I in wildlife management. We were part of a Hosner "team" and ready to take on the world. My wife "dressed" a Playboy calendar on his desk.

We moved to different office spaces soon thereafter but continued our friendship. There were many long discussions about forestry, especially forest research. He was enthusiastic about wildlife but most of our conversations turned to pine bark beetles and his passion that they were not the cause of pine tree death and losses but just one of the conspicuous results of trees dying from a combination of stresses in their communities. He never got satisfaction from publishing that theory and the experiments he did with students related to it. We tried to get it written and its present draft form is within my web site at http://fwie.fw.vt.edu/rhgiles/heikkenen/index.htm.

His other major interest was in the lessons taught by trees in their rings. He had an extensive collection of old tree cross-sections and had documents on reflected weather patterns back about 600 years. From these records he claimed abilities to determine the age of old buildings from the characteristics of rings visible in major timbers in these structures. Rooting around under old structures or in dusty attics was only a dream for the older man.

He was a brilliant person, very fast of uptake and response, often risqué and "outspoken," often more challenging than constructive. He has many faithful students … and " others," but so do I. He will remain as one of the conspicuous memories of several generations of foresters and entomologists at Virginia Tech ... alive, mentally active, challenging, off the beaten track.

My daughters knew his daughter. We knew Gale, his first wife, and suffered with him her death. My wife and Jack were in a perpetual contest of songs, jokes, facts, and " one-up-person's-ship." We knew Jackie, only briefly but enjoyed meals with them at Maxwells, The Inn, and Mountain Lake, and a visit at their fine Florida home. Jack moved back to coastal Virginia after her death and we are thankful for the friendship he established there with Hale.

I'll miss sending him press releases about " bark beetle attacks" … just to keep his blood boiling …for he knew foresters would never learn and would keep spending money on the attacks rather than on managing the pine (and other) communities well. I shared a book on the wolves of Russia with him and it seemed to light a similar fire - wolves did kill people, lots of them, but they learned about humans and firearms, and over the centuries fear of humans became one of their traits… one that may eventually develop in North America. He saw that dark cloud gathering. Oh, how I'll miss him. He still had much to teach, alternative ways to look at the world.

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