The life journey of Dr. Grover Cleveland Harris, Jr. came to an end on July 24, 2021, after over 90 years.
His journey began on March 24,1931, in a tiny place called White Oak in West Virginia, with the one room schoolhouse and church just down the road from the Harris family farm. His mother insisted he get an education, and with the aid of a 4H Club scholarship of $200, he enrolled at West Virginia University in the Agriculture College. While an undergraduate there, he met and married the love of his life, Sara, and nine months later, as he graduated WVU, they celebrated the birth of the first of their three children. His undergraduate ROTC participation led him post-graduation to the Air Force and Montgomery, Alabama, where Lt. Harris, as a young MP Officer, acquired many of the management and interpersonal skills he would use later in life. Thanks to the GI Bill, he then earned a Master’s Degree from WVU and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. With his specialty in birds and their physiology, it was destiny that he move his family to Fayetteville and become a professor in the Poultry Science Department at Arkansas. Always interested in new ideas and new people, his curiosity and commitment earned him Arkansas’ 1969 Outstanding Faculty Award, a 6 month sabbatical to University of Edinburgh and numerous USAID consulting trips to Asia and South America. Somewhere in the midst of all of that, he managed to be active in Boy Scouts, the Mariners at First United Presbyterian, intramural sports, still finding time to be a father and even take in a little family fishing and camping on the White River.
Even though he was mostly tasked with doing research and publishing technical papers, what he enjoyed most was teaching and mentoring students. It is said that the evidence of a life well-lived is in the memories and actions of those who knew the person. “Dr. Harris”, as he was always called, leaves a large body of memories in the minds and hearts of his students from across the U.S. and the world, having been the doctoral advisor for a large contingent of PhD’s from the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean and countless undergraduate students in his 30-year tenure. To him, they were all foremost students, with no distinction of race or class. He saw himself as not just their teacher and mentor, but as much a friend, life coach or parent, giving willingly whatever was needed. To him, all his students were simply humans he could help to reach their goals and send on them on their way. Once, the granddaughter of one of his former PhD students from Japan came to his home to pay her respects to him when she began her education in Fayetteville. The students of his students are simply too numerous to count and he will live forever in the memories of those he influenced.
Lastly, a full reflection of his life is incomplete unless it includes his life-long beloved of 64 years, Sara, beside whom he is sharing eternity. To that end, we offer this: