Larry Jean Gordon

Larry's 95-year life began near Tipton, Oklahoma, close to the border of Texas. When he was just two, his parents left the initial stages of the dust bowl for New Mexico. As an adult, he would claim only New Mexico. His brother, Ladd, was only four when they arrived. His mother, Dewey Lee, had secured a job near Thoreau, New Mexico as the teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. The job included the family's use of a two-room teacherage with a pump handle outside the door for water. His father, Andrew, was a true cowboy. He would work as a ranch hand as a young man and eventually be employed as a range manager for the Bureau of Land Management. The family lived all over New Mexico and eastern Arizona, including in Coolidge, McGaffey, and Veguita.

Having been almost the only teacher Larry ever had, his mother managed to get him graduated from high school and through three semesters of college before he entered the United States Navy in 1944. With much more formal education than his fellow sailors in basic training, he was assigned to serve as a hospital corpsman at Bethesda Naval Medical Center. His principal duty was to spend many hours a day sitting in an ambulance waiting for a telephone nailed to a post outside the window to ring. He was told that should the telephone ring that it was linked to the White House, and that he would receive instructions concerning the President. The phone never rang, and it was after the war that the young corpsman learned that the President was a paraplegic. The rest of his life he would only describe his war service as "guarding the Dempster Dumpster."

Honorably discharged, he returned to La Joya, New Mexico where his parents were farming and ranching. He entered the University of New Mexico earning his bachelor's degree and later a master's in biology. Much more importantly, he met Nedra Callendar, and they were married near campus in 1950. A year and one day later, Debbie was born, and then Kent two years after Debbie, and Gary eight years after Kent.

Larry and Nedra were married for 67 years, until her death in 2017. She had suffered a debilitating stroke, and Larry was at her side nearly every minute of her four-year convalescence. His loving attention was a small example of his deep devotion to Nedra.

His three children survive him. Debbie Dunlap is living in Albuquerque, having lost Rick over ten years ago. Kent is married to Elli and lives in Santa Rosa, California. Gary is married to Terri Giron and lives in Santa Fe. Larry is also survived by four granddaughters (Dana, Kim, Celine, and Bianca), and one grandson (Bryce); one great-granddaughter (Savannah) and one great-grandson (Mason); and one great-great-grandson (Kai). Only one of his three nieces survives him, Laura Larson in Orlando, Florida. Three grandnieces also survive him (Tamara, Sara, and Krista).

With his two college degrees, Larry found employment with the county health department as a "Sanitarian" based in Silver City. Back in the day, sanitarians mostly tried to figure out why folks had already suffered an illness-bad water, bad milk, bad meat-any number of things might be investigated after the fact. Somehow though, Larry began to envision a different approach. He was admitted to the University of Michigan School of Public Health, which awarded him his second master's degree in 1954.

Larry then entered upon a career in public and environmental health that was to become so vast and visionary that it deserved a book, Environmental Health and Protection Adventures (Bruce Etchison, editor). The book chronicles Larry's career as a nationally recognized figure in matters of environmental health and protection. He was deeply involved in state and national environmental health program development. He envisioned and wrote the legislation creating the Environmental Improvement Department in New Mexico and the municipal health department in Albuquerque as well as the state Scientific Laboratory Division. He served twice as director of Albuquerque's health department. He served as a director or cabinet secretary in the administrations of New Mexico governors Cargo, King, Apodaca, and Carruthers.

His portfolio included action of such issues as agent orange, DDT, uranium mines, paper mills, atomic weapons fallout measurement, air, food, and water concerns, tobacco abatement, as well as helping to create the nation's Environmental Protection Agency. Larry was also the national President of the 55,000 member American Public Health Association in 1980-1981 and provided recommendations and testimony before Congress on several issues, such as the Clean Water Act, national energy policy and matters of national health policy. Always a visionary thinker, Larry, prior to 2005, published papers raising the spectra of climate change.

He was presented with the highest awards bestowed by the alumni of the University of New Mexico and the Michigan School of Public Health. The regents of UNM awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2007. Active in all professional organizations touching his profession, each organization awarded him their highest awards of distinction named in honor of early luminaries in public health, including the Breslow, Sedgwick, Wagner, Snyder, Crumbine, Sippy, and Mangold awards.

Larry accomplished all of that, but still found time for much more. He knew where to cast a fly  upon the waters of the Pecos, Chama, Jemez, and Brazos rivers and would always manage to land more trout than anyone else in the group. He knew how to walk the length of the Brazos Box without having to swim. He knew where all the coveys of quail resided between Roswell and Fort Sumner, and he could bag his limit in time to be home in Albuquerque for dinner. He knew how to navigate all the side canyons of the 190 miles of Lake Powell without the use of a map. He took up golf later in life-mostly because Nedra loved the game. They were members of the Albuquerque Country Club and Pendaries Village Golf Club. They loved spending time in Pendaries in retirement. He and Nedra travelled through most of Europe and loved their many trips to Hawaii.

Larry lived his life in a consistent, conscientious, and conscious manner. It was a life of tremendous consequence with a positive impact upon the entire world. He died on April 29 while taking an afternoon nap-a habit that he practiced his entire life in all manner of settings-beside trout streams and windmills, below mountain peaks, and in the shadow of cliffs drifting upon Lake Powell. It was a true blessing that a kind soul left so gently. His remains have been cremated and will be interred with Nedra's in a single grave. No public service will be held.