LeRoy D. Olson
COLUMBIA — LeRoy D. Olson, a former MU professor in the Department of Pathobiology, died Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010. He was 81.
Mr. Olson was born in East Chain, Minn., in 1929.
He obtained a bachelor's degree in agriculture in 1954 and a doctoral degree in veterinary medicine in 1958, both from the University of Minnesota. He completed a master's degree in veterinary parasitology in 1962 and a doctoral degree in comparative pathology in 1965 from Purdue University.
Mr. Olson married his wife, Janice Wood, in 1954.
He served on active duty in the U.S. Army reserve from 1958 to 1960. He retired from the Veterinary Corps of the Army with the rank of colonel in 1989.
He was an instructor at the Department of Veterinary Microbiology, Pathology, and Public Health at Purdue University until 1965 when he moved to Columbia to teach at MU. During his time at MU, he mentored 20 students toward master's or doctoral degrees.
Mr. Olson authored and co-authored more than 130 peer-refereed publications. Subjects include fowl cholera, streptococci in turkeys, gastroenteritis, salmonella and swine dysentery. He had developed several vaccines for diseases in turkeys and swine.
Mr. Olson taught swine diseases in Poland in 1976 on a Polish Academy of Science Award. In 1979, he studied salmonella control in the Scandinavian countries on behalf of the World Health Organization.
Mr. Olson was awarded three Fulbright Lectureship teaching awards. In 1995, he received the Pfizer Excellence in Poultry Research Award from the American Veterinary Medical Association. He also won an award for Outstanding Research on Disease affecting Livestock and Poultry Production issued by the American Feed Industry and the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Mr. Olson traveled to more than 100 countries and took more than 12,000 Kodachrome slides of what he saw. He often said that wherever you go, people are the same: they are friendly and want stable communities and good lives for their children. During the summer months, he would take his wife and children on the trips, offering them the opportunity to see the world. He had returned from a trip to Europe and Scandinavia last November.
He was active in the International Seminar at MU during his retirement. The seminars were devoted to geopolitics and world problems. He enjoyed the exchange of ideas at the seminars and was often inspired by the people he met there.
Recently, Mr. Olson was working on an article review of mad cow disease, which he believed he could trace back to scientific reports from Africa in the early 1950s.
He enjoyed working on his rental properties and playing with his grandsons.
He is survived by his wife; a brother, Stanley Olson of Fairmont, Minn.; a son, Timothy Olson; a daughter, Gwen Struchtemeyer; and two grandsons.
Visitation will be from 5 to 7 p.m. on Friday at Parker Funeral Service, 22 N. Tenth St. Graveside services will be private.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be sent to the College of Veterinary Medicine, c/o Dr. Ron Cott, W-203 Veterinary Medicine Building, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211. Memorials will be applied toward scholarships for graduate students in veterinary medicine.
Tributes may be posted on the Parker Funeral Service Web site.
