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Kuiper lost his directorship at Yerkes Observatory in 1960 and arranged to start a major center for solar system astronomy at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Calling his new center the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL), Kuiper moved himself and nine members of his staff and student cadre to Tucson in mid-1960. By 1965, UA Lunar Lab staff began observing with Kuiper's "pride and joy" -- the new 61-inch precision optical reflecting telescope near Mount Bigelow. Without warning, on Christmas Eve 1973, he collapsed and died while on vacation in Mexico City. His once-fantastical prediction of a debris belt of comets just beyond the planets was borne out in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And in his honor, that structure, the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt, now bears his name.

Sources:
The source of the photo is Windows to the Universe, at http://www.windows.ucar.edu/ at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) University of Michigan

University of Arizona websites:
http://atropos.as.arizona.edu/aiz/teaching/

a204/moon/Astron99.27.3.40.txt/www.arizona.edu/spotlight/1999/Jul121999.html

More information:
http://atropos.as.arizona.edu/aiz/teaching/a204/moon/Astron99.27.3.40.txt

by: Jan Jager

Nicholas Van Alstine was
born to a Dutch family on
August 17, 1816 in Canajoharie,
New York. The family originally came
to New Amsterdam, New York around 1650.
Nicholas joined the army in 1846 as Nelson Van
Alstine to fight in the Mexican War. He came to the
Tucson area in 1856 as a foreman of a mule train.

He established ranches in Tubac and Tubutana, Sonora before settling on a ranch in the Tanque Verde area. Nicholas died March 14, 1898 and is buried in a small cemetery near Speedway and Houghton. A memorial plaque is located in the Veteran's section (V) of the Holy Hope Cemetery. Tucson named a street, Van Alstine Street, to commemorate this early pioneer.

G. W. Van Hovenberg was co-proprietor of the Pioneer Soda and Ice Works in 1880. The facility was the only facility in Tucson turning out 200 - 1,000 bottles per day. In addition, the ice plant turned out three tons of ice per day. The company employed ten men during the hot season.
Source: Arizona Historical Cociety, Tucson - City Directory of 1880

Nelson Van Alstine

Hubert G. DeWolf was born in Hackensack, New Jersey in 1877. He was a direct descendant of a Dutch family that came to New Amsterdam in 1640 and came to Tucson in 1921. Hubert was the only cashier of the University of Arizona for 32 years until he retired on July 15, 1954. In addition to collecting money he was a top banjo player around the University and often teamed up with some professors to form a hot quartet.
Source: Arizona Daily Star - June 27, 1954

Hubert G. DeWolf

Edward van der Vries, 1891-1971 was a prominent real estate man and one of the founders of the Tucson Board of Realtors. He was born in Holland, Michigan from Dutch parents. He came to Tucson in 1916. In 1919 he started in the real estate business and formed Vandervries Realty and Mortgage Company in 1928. Mr. van der Vries was president of the local Kiwanis Club in 1925 and served six terms on the board. He was director of the Tucson Chamber of Commerce four terms and served as president in 1931 and 1932. In 1933, President Roosevelt drafted Mr. van der Vries to serve on the Arizona State Reemployment Board.

Edward van der Vries

Gerard Peter Kuiper

Gerard Peter Kuiper, 1905-1973, was the Dutch-American father of modern planetary astronomy, turning a moribund science into a thriving marketplace of ideas little more than a half-century ago. Gerrit Peter Kuiper was one of four children, born in Harencarspel, the Netherlands, on December 7, 1905. Kuiper chose to study physics and chemistry at the University of Leiden. Kuiper completed his bachelor of science degree at Leiden in three years, and in 1927, began his Ph.D. studies there. Kuiper moved to the United States in 1933, where he took a postdoctoral research fellowship at Lick Observatory in California. While at Harvard, Kuiper met and, in June 1936, married Sarah Parker Fuller. Kuiper took American citizenship in 1939-1940 and then joined the war effort as a civilian in the War Department's Office of Scientific Research and Development. After the war he became director at Yerkes Observatory in Chicago.

Heiko Augustinus Oberman (1930-2001) was born in Utrecht, The Netherlands, and received his university training at the University of Utrecht and Oxford University, earning his doctorate in 1957. Following professorships at Harvard University (1958-1966, Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History) and the University of T�bingen, Germany (1966-1984, Director of the Institut f�r Sp�tmittelalter und Reformation), he founded the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies at The University of Arizona in 1989. Professor Oberman was awarded the 1996 A. H. Heineken Prize for History by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the highest recognition a historian can achieve. Author or editor of 30 books and some hundred articles, he is particularly known for his prize-winning study. The Harvest of Medieval Theology (Harvard University Press, 1963) and for his Luther: Man Between God and the Devil (English version, Yale University Press, 1990). In October 2000, the Division celebrated Professor Oberman's 70th birthday and over 40 years of his work in the field of Reformation history with an international symposium held in Tucson.

At this time, Professor Oberman and his family bequeathed his personal library of more than 10,000 books to The University of Arizona on the condition that a Chair for Late Medieval and Reformation History will be installed. Professor Oberman was most proud of the Five Star Faculty Award awarded by the students and presented to him by The University of Arizona in 1989 acknowledging his "excellence and notable teaching abilities."

Heiko Augustinus Oberman

Dr. Peter J. Wierenga, University of Arizona Professor, Director Water Resources Research Institute.Dr. Wierenga was born on June 27, 1934 in Uithuizen in the Province of Groningen , The Netherlands. He moved to the USA in 1964 to begin a Ph. D program at the University of California. In 1968 Dr. Wierenga started to work at the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture of the New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico and in 1988 he joined the faculty at the University of Arizona.

1997 - Present: Director, Water Resources Research Institute

1988 - 2000: Professor and Department Head, Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. Teaching Soil-Water Relations (undergraduate), Soils Physics (graduate)

Education: Ph.D. - 1968 Soil plant-water relations, University of California
M.S. - 1963 Irrigation and drainage, Agricultural University, Wageningen, The Netherlands B.S. - 1960 Land reclamation and improvement, Agricultural University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Publications: Dr. Wierenga has published and co-published a series of publications describing the downward flow of water through various soils, including soils with sloping layers, and publications on water flow through soil in specific areas such as buried waste repositories and the Las Cruces Trench for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Source: University of Arizona website: http://ag.arizona.edu/SWES/people/cv/wierenga.htm

Dirk Den Baars was born April 1, 1924 in Padang, Sumatra, in the Dutch New Indies (Indonesia) of Dutch/ Indonesian parents. He served in the Dutch resistance against the Japanese and was involved in acts of sabotage and guerilla warfare. Dirk was captured by the Japanese and sentenced to die but was spared due to his young age. He spent 3 1/2 years in prison camps before escaping and joining his family to leave the Netherlands. After the war he was awarded the Dutch Resistance Cross by Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands for his heroic activities. He studied at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands and received a PhD in Geology in 1954. Dirk emigrated to the United State in 1956 and settled in Tucson in 1958 to start a consulting firm, Den Baars & Associates. Later he became a partner in Keystone Minerals, Inc. as a specialist in exploration of copper, precious metals adn industrial minerals. In 1959 he married his wife Beverly. Dirk spoke 7 languages and was a long time member of the Tucson Dutch Club, "Neerlandia" and the Southern Arizona Mining Organization. He was an avid ham radio operator for many years. Dirk died on November 11, 2003 in Tucson, Arizona.

Dirk Den Baars

Dr. Peter J. Wierenga

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