Merle Charles Prunty, Jr., 1917-1982

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 23. No. 1, May 1983, pp. 1-9 MERLE CHARLES PRUNTY, JR., 1917-1982 Charles S. Aiken The untimely death of Merle Charles Prunty, Jr. in Athens, Georgia on October 5, 1982 ended a long distinguished career. For more than three decades he was a major leader in American geography. An administrator of unusual skill, he also was a superb teacher and an innovative scholar. He was internationally known for his studies of the American South and for his creation of an eminent geography department at the University of Georgia. Although Merle Prunty's official retirement from the University of Georgia was to begin in January, 1983, he continued to maintain a demanding daily schedule until shortly before his death. However, he looked forward to official retirement, for with it would come time to reflect, synthesize, and write. Among the uncompleted projects was a book on the geography of the American South on which he had worked off and on for a number of years. Merle Prunty was born in St. Joseph, Missouri on March 2, 1917 and was reared in Tulsa, Oklahoma where his father was superintendent of schools. The family returned to Missouri when his father took an administrative position at Stephens College in Columbia, and Merle Prunty enrolled at the University of Missouri. He received his B. S. in 1939 and in 1940 was awarded an A.B. and an M.A. in geography. An interest in agricultural geography, which had developed from summer Dr. Aiken is Professor ofGeography at the University ofTennessee in Knoxville, TN 37996. Southeastern Geographer visits to the Kansas farm of his paternal grandparents, was encouraged at Missouri by Samuel T. Bratton. After considering doctoral programs at Chicago and Clark, Merle Prunty selected Clark University primarily because of his desire to work in agricultural geography under Clarence F. Jones. While at the University of Missouri, Merle Prunty met Eugenia Wyatt, a student at Stephens College, and the two were married in 1939. He accepted Eugenia's family as his own and increasingly identified himself with her home in the farm country of west Tennessee. He chose the evolution of the agricultural geography of Dyer County, Tennessee as the topic for his doctoral dissertation. Merle Prunty completed his Ph.D. at Clark in 1944. In 1942 he had taken a job as Assistant Professor of Geography at Mississippi State College for Women, but he was on leave from the position serving as a lieutenant in the United States Navy from 1943 until 1946. Upon release from the Navy he accepted an appointment as Professor of Geography and Geology at the University of Georgia. In 1946 the University of Georgia would hardly have seemed an attractive place to an ambitious young geographer. The geography program consisted of a few service courses taught by one faculty member in a poorly equipped classroom. The courses had reputations as havens for marginal students, and no respect for the discipline existed among the university's faculty. Although friends urged Merle Prunty toward a position at a large California university, he thought that the one at Georgia had significant potential. Concerning his decision, he later wrote that, "the situation was virtually 'zero' but ... I felt it spelled 'Opportunity ' with a capital ?' for a young man." (J) What created the opportunity was a commitment from the administration at Georgia for Merle Prunty to head and to build quality programs in geography and geology. (2) The first appointments to a new faculty were made in 1947, and by 1949 the faculty had grown to six. A graduate program in geography was established in 1951, and the first students were admitted to the new doctoral program in 1961. The geography faculty continued to grow and by 1970 consisted of 20 persons. When the University of Georgia constructed a new Science Center in the late 1950s, Merle Prunty was presented with the opportunity to design a new building for his growing department. The building opened in the fall of 1960, and its octagonal lecture rooms, large cartography laboratories, double-room faculty re- Vol. XXIII, No. 1 search offices, and other features made it a facility that more than two decades later...