- Date Of Birth: June 18, 1919
- Date Of Death: March 20, 2011
- State: Georgia
Adrian Hill Daane, of Newnan, died March 20, 2011, at his home. He was born on June 18, 1919, in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
He was educated in the Stillwater elementary school and middle schools of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Belle Glade, Florida. He graduated from Pahokee High School in Florida. He attended the University of Florida from 1937 to 1941, graduating with a degree in chemistry. He was in the graduate program in chemistry at Iowa State University in 1941 when the United States entered WWII and was chosen to work as a group leader in the Manhattan Project which culminated in the atomic bombs that ended WWII.
After the war, he completed his Ph.D. degree in 1950 and became an assistant professor and later professor of chemistry at Iowa State University. In 1963 he was appointed Head of the Chemistry Department at Kansas State University, and in 1972 was appointed Dean of the college of Arts and Sciences at the University of Missouri-Rolla. He was later appointed Dean of the Graduate School at UMR, and on his retirement in 1984 was awarded the title of Emeritus Dean and Emeritus Professor of Chemistry. He enjoyed teaching chemistry and was an Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at LaGrange College in Georgia for four years. He often was asked to speak about chemistry and the Manhattan Project in college and high school chemistry classes; his research specialty was the Rare Earth Elements and with his graduate students he prepared the first metals of three of these elements. At Iowa State University and Kansas State University, 13 of his graduate students were awarded their Ph.D. degrees and four were awarded their Masters Degrees.
He was married to Jean Plunkett Daane from 1941 until her death in April 2010. He is survived by children, Ann Daane and daughters Jean and Elizabeth Pembleton, Peter and Kari Daane and children Will, Alice, and Sarah Daane, and Susan Daane and daughter Mary Webb.
