Top > In the News... > MnSTA Has Lost a Longtime Friend and Colleague
by , posted on 12:49 PM, January 10, 2018
Fred Riehm, a member of MnSTA (then MSTA) since 1964, and Life Member since 1990, died unexpectedly, age 90, January 5, 2018.
Fred had an extraordinary record of service to MnSTA. He served as treasurer and following that as parliamentarian, a position he held until his death. He also took attendance at board meetings and ordered lunch during our annual meeting. And with respect to lunch, think of this self-imposed assignment as an analogue to herding cats. He performed these tasks in his usual way. To use a phrase from performance assessment: exceeds expectations.
I can do no better than quote President Michele Kooman's note to his daughter Francie on Fred's importance to MnSTA.
On behalf of the Minnesota Science Teachers Association I offer our collective and deeply felt condolences. Fred was a dedicated, detailed and kind person that we were fortunate to have in our organization for so many years. He took his role as Parliamentarian seriously and with humor. Our meetings always ran well, due in part to his knowledge of Parliamentarian procedures. We all enjoyed his dry and witty humor, including many jokes and puns at each meeting. He touched all of our lives. He will be deeply missed by all of us.
Here (includes access to a guestbook for comments) and here are two obituaries. In addition Mr. Riehm wrote a brief history of MnSTA for the 50th anniversary of MnSTA. This reminds me that he had a complete collection of all the paper copies of the newsletter. Eventually these will be posted on the MnSTA website.
He was remarkable and MnSTA is better as a result of his commitment and long service as well as love of science education and science educators.
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