In Memoriam

He felt his long tenure was a privilege to pursue his passion.

In 1995, Alan was awarded the Distinguished West Virginia Award for outstanding achievement and meritorious service by Gov. Gaston Caperton. The Distinguished West Virginian Award, which honors a citizen’s service to West Virginia, is the highest award that can be presented to a citizen by the governor. That same year he was recipient of the I.C. White Memorial Award from the Eastern Section of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) for his outstanding contributions to the geologic knowledge of sedimentary rocks in the Appalachian Basin. He was recognized by the Eastern Section of AAPG as the 1989 Outstanding Educator, written by Dr. Robert Shumaker for being an excellent teacher at both the introductory and advanced teaching levels. After he partially retired in 1995, he continued to teach geology classes as professor emeritus for the next 10 years until 2005, as well as organized and taught seminars/courses for the energy and environmental industries, commonly with support from other geologists.

He supervised 14 Ph.D. and 70 M.S./M.A. graduates, and these bonding experiences rank with the highest highlights of his career. He published over 50 papers largely related to sedimentation and sedimentary rocks. His national reputation in research led to him being invited to the prestigious Geological Society of America’s Centenary Volumes on a Decade of North American Geology.

Alan impacted countless lives academically where he helped advance the careers of his students and faculty, many who went on to become successful in academia, government and industry. He inspired and transformed individuals from all over the world. A peopleoriented person, he was respected for his mentorship abilities, optimism, high energy and creative way he pushed the “multiple working hypotheses.” His leadership always brought out the best in people.

He met the love of his life, Ruth Ellen Rapp, at Penn State University during a getacquainted dance, shared a short engagement, married in 1957 at State College, Pa., then moved to Morgantown that same year. They shared the adventure of their lives together for the next 64 years, enjoying dancing, traveling, museums and performing arts concerts. A handwritten post-it from Alan to Ruth on their 43rd wedding anniversary remains on the mirror at their home with the words, “I now love more of you and less of me. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

Always a natural athlete, Alan forged long-lasting friendships playing healthy competitive matches in tennis and other sports, and he cherished those relationships immensely.
He was led by his faith in everything he did, and as a member of the First Presbyterian Church, he served as Elder, Stephen Minister, and organizer of “Pancake Breakfast” for the homeless with enthusiasm and fervor. For a period, he was a lay preacher at the Sugar Grove and Canyon churches. He and his wife taught Sunday School, Vacation Bible Camp and adult education classes. He believed that teamwork with his wife or at the office produced “2 + 2 = 5.”

Alan enjoyed living in Morgantown as well as serving the local community and was an active member of the Morgantown Planning Commission, Morgantown Ward and Boundary Commission and neighborhood associations. He led an initiative with the Burrough’s Run Neighborhood Association to mitigate the flash flooding caused by the July 1996 storm. He identified the water issues and presented stormwater management solutions to the Morgantown community. Without his efforts, many homeowners would have had disastrous and continuous water damage.

Before retirement, Jeff was a Senior Geologist for Energy and Mineral Resources with the North Carolina Geological Survey (NCGS) and the lead scientist for the State’s Mesozoic basins’ natural gas study. Previously he worked at Arco Oil and Gas, and for various mineral exploration companies throughout the United States, and portions of Brazil and Canada.
Jeff was a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. He was a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration. Jeff was a member of the Carolina Geological Society for over 32 years.

Jeff was a dedicated scientist with over 220 publications on energy, mineral resources, geochemistry and geological hazards. He was also very conscientious regarding his posters having won the AAPG Eastern Section Best Poster Award four times (three in a row). As a result the AAPG Eastern Section recently named the Eastern Section Best Student Poster Award in his honor.

I met Dr. Potter when I attended the University of Cincinnati in the 1970s when the Department of Geology was in the oldest building on the main campus, the “Old Tech” building. I remember that in addition to his office, Dr. Potter had a separate room for his reprint library. If you were looking for him or a particular paper, he was most likely in that library with the paper. In his statistics class, I learned the importance of knowing what your data looked like and understanding the limitations of making inferences, was I justified using that F-test? Many were the times Dr. Potter would stop me in the halls, “Mr. Nuttall, I have this data set…” and I’d be off working on finding the mineralogical differences between fluvial sands on leading and trailing continental margins. He emphasized looking the part of a gentleman. Always a gentleman himself, he was rarely without a necktie.

Southern Illinois was often the destination for departmental field trips. Dr. Potter had a whistle and would enforce time on an outcrop; when that whistle blew, it was time to re-board our vehicles. Later, we would find that he had arranged with local church groups to prepare and serve home-cooked meals (usually in the church’s all-purpose room). On one occasion, while working on an outcrop of Ordovician carbonates, he enthusiastically exclaimed he had found two “fossil cow horns.” After my time at Cincinnati, Dr. Potter worked on many projects with surrounding state surveys. At the Kentucky Geological Survey, his visits always included a basket of apples. He was very good at arranging interesting transportation. We had a barge to ferry field trip participants around the Mississippian Fort Payne exposures on Lake Cumberland during a period of unusually low water. When a drought drastically lowered water levels along the Mississippi River, he arranged for a private plane flight to view the exposed point bars. I didn’t expect to be discussing investing when I visited his newly acquired condominium. And, I never did figure out when he discovered the best soda fountain in Bedford, Kentucky. He was both a mentor and a friend. I’m sure his many colleagues and students have fond memories. Paul will be missed.