Julian Battaile, September 26, 1925-August 24, 2005

Julian Battaile, 1925-2005, was a retired Southern Oregon University chemistry professor, amateur musician and writer, botany enthusiast, and father of two. He is survived by his wife, Connie Hopkins Battaile of Ashland, and his sons, Bennett Battaile of Portland and Gordon Battaile of Beaverton.

He was born Sept. 26, 1925 in New Orleans and was raised in the bayou country of Louisiana near the small town of LaCombe. Unsuccessful in enlisting during World War II due to chronic asthma, he worked his way through college to get a BS in chemistry from Louisiana State and went on to get a Masters from the University of Illinois. After teaching chemistry at Southeastern Louisiana College and Southwestern Louisiana College and working as a research chemist for Ethyl Corporation, Julian got a Ph D in biochemistry from Oregon State, where his doctoral thesis was on the biosynthesis of terpenes in mint. He met Connie Hopkins at OSU and they married in 1958. He joined the SOU chemistry department in 1962 and retired in 1987. Over the years he did post-doctoral research at UC Davis, ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, and the University of Hawaii.

Julian was a gifted teacher and in 1966 was one of ten SOU (then SOC) recipients of the Oregon Legislature’s Mosser award for excellence in teaching, the only year it was awarded. A lifelong piano player, he hosted a small weekly jazz combo for over 20 years. After retiring he began writing short stories and hosted a writers group from l988 until his death, recently completing the score and lyrics for a musical. He had a strong interest in plants; he gardened actively and he and Connie performed field surveys for the Oregon Flora Project starting in 2000. For this project they took responsibility for an ongoing botanical inventory of a 620 square mile area of SW Klamath County, where they collected and identified 670 species of plants.

He was predeceased by his parents Jennie Barrow Battaile and William W. Battaile, and by his three siblings, Bennett, William Walthall, Jr., and Rosemary.

Julian, who never smoked, died August 24, 2004 at Providence Hospital in Medford, Oregon, from progressive lung failure following treatment for lung cancer. Memorial contributions may be made to the SOU Chemistry Department Scholarship Fund, SOU Foundation, 1250 Siskiyou Boulevard, Ashland OR 97520. Please contact the SOU Foundation at 552-8366 for more information. A memorial service was held at 2 p.m. Saturday, September 17th at the Ashland Community Center at 59 Winburn Way.