Lee Roy Martin's Obituary
Lee Roy Martin, 89 of Bowie, Maryland formerly of Fayetteville, AR. He was born June 22, 1916 in Boone County, Arkansas to Edgar Henry and Gertrude (Osborn) Martin, and attended public schools at Western Grove and Harrison. He graduated from Harrison High School in 1932, and from the University of Arkansas (with a B. A. in mathematics) in 1937.
He taught mathematics and English in schools in Peel, Arkansas, and Duncan, Oklahoma, and worked in the successful 1938 congressional election campaign for Clyde T. Ellis, a New Deal champion of rural electrification. Drafted in January 1942, he served nearly four years in the Army Air Force during World War II, finishing as a captain in 1946.
He received his commission as 2nd lieutenant on Oct. 31, 1942, the same day he married Lenna Doris Hull. They spent 20 days together before he left for North Africa on Dec. 11, 1942.
Martin served as a communications officer in the 523rd Fighter Squadron, 27th Fighter Group, which provided air support to the 5th and 7th Armies' invasions of Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. His group won Presidential Citations for destroying three German panzer divisions in September 1943, helping save the Salerno beachhead, and for operations against the German army in the Rhone Valley in September 1944. He was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious achievement and outstanding service in direct support of combat operations.
After the war's end, he took his transcript and drove to Harvard, presenting himself to the Department of Economics for admission to graduate study under the G. I. Bill. He was awarded the M. A. in 1947 and the Ph.D. in 1950.
His goals and philosophy as an economist were shaped by his early experience growing up in rural Arkansas and in the depression. Throughout his career, he was interested in problems of rural poverty and economic development. He realized early on that poor states and poor countries could not advance without investing in people by investing in education. He worked on the organization of agricultural markets in urbanizing economies, income problems of rural areas, the economics of agricultural development, resource economics and the economics of education and human capital formation.
In 1948, he joined the Agricultural Economics faculty at North Carolina State College, and in 1958 accepted a position as Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Arkansas.
In 1954-55, he took his young family to Karachi and worked as an Advisor on Agriculture to the Planning Board of the Government of Pakistan, under the auspices of Harvard University and the Ford Foundation. He was a member of an eight-man team that worked with Pakistani counterparts to produce that country's First Five Year Plan of Economic Development.
From 1963 to 1966, he was Professor of Resource Economics in the School of Natural Resources, The University of Michigan. He joined the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Minnesota in 1966 and worked there until his retirement in 1981. He consulted on economic development projects in Togo, Iran, Tunisia, Philippines, Morocco, Thailand, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Senegal for the Agency for International Development (AID), Ford Foundation and other organizations.
He served as a member of the Editorial Council of the Journal of Farm Economics, and as Chairman of the American Agricultural Economics Association's Postwar Literature Review Committee. He was editor of a massive, four-volume survey of the literature of agricultural economics.
He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Eta Sigma, Pi Mu Epsilon, Gamma Sigma Delta, Pi Kappa Alpha, American Agricultural Economics Association, American Economic Association, Royal Economic Society, and the Econometric Society. He is listed in the American Men of Science.
After retirement, he returned to live in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He lived the final 6 years of his life in the Bowie Assisted Living facility in Bowie, Maryland. He died there on May 27, 2006.
He was married for 52 years to Doris Hull Martin until her death in 1994. He is survived by two children, Elizabeth Ann Martin of Alexandria, Virginia, and Richard Hull Martin of Los Angeles, California, and his brother, Glenn L. Martin of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Visitation will be held 10:00 AM until 11:00 AM on Friday, June 2, 2006 at Nelson-Berna Funeral Home Chapel with the service beginning at 11:00 AM with Dr. James Johnson officiating. Burial will follow at Fayetteville National Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Nature Conservancy in Arkansas (601 N. University Ave., Little Rock AR 72205) or in your own state (www.nature.org).
Visitation Date Time Friday, June 2, 2006 10:00 AM until 11:00 AM Visitation Location Nelson-Berna Funeral Home Chapel Service Date Time 11:00 AM Friday, June 2, 2006 Service Location Nelson-Berna Funeral Home Chapel
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