Eva Crane, 95, an influential beekeeping authority who turned to the scientific study of bees after receiving a swarm of the insects as a wedding present, has died.
Crane, who late in life wrote a noted world history of beekeeping, died Sept. 6 in Slough, England, after a brief hospitalization. Her death was announced by the International Bee Research Association that she founded in 1949.
Trained as a nuclear physicist, Crane was 30 and a professor at the University of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England, when she received a gift of a box of bees. The present would have been welcome in 1942 because sugar was in short supply during World War II.
Fascinated by the working beehive, Crane read everything she could about bees in the university library but was surprised that there was no scientific journal devoted to the field.
Eventually, she would remedy that and much more as she almost single-handedly organized what had been a relatively unwieldy worldwide community of bee enthusiasts into a cohesive group dedicated to gathering and disseminating scientific research.
Between 1949 and 2000, Crane visited at least 60 countries and was known to arrive at a remote destination by dog sled or dugout canoe to lecture and teach governments about beekeeping practices. She reflected on her travels in “Making a Beeline” (2003), one of several books she wrote. “The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting,” published when she was 87, is considered a masterpiece for its encyclopedic scope.
Wally Parks, 94, an automobile enthusiast who founded the National Hot Rod Association and helped turn drag racing into a legitimate sport, died Friday in Burbank, Calif., said a spokesman with the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona.
As a test driver for General Motors, Parks started organizing car races in Southern California’s dry lake beds in the 1940s. He formed the NHRA in 1951 out of those loosely organized desert races. It grew from a simple car club, with Parks’ wife, Barbara, hand-typing membership cards, into a governing body with events across the nation.
The NHRA’s first sanctioned major drag race was held in April 1953 in a parking lot at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona. The city became the permanent home of the Winternationals and its season-ending World Finals.
Parks was president of the NHRA until 1983, then served as chairman of the board until 1999. In the 1950s, he also was founding editor of Hot Rod magazine, which chronicled the burgeoning sport.
As president of the Southern California Timing Association, Parks set the distance of a quarter of a mile as the standard length of a drag race.
