Royal E. Shanks (1912-1962)

Royal Eastman Shanks, president of the Southern Appalachian Club, 1951 and 1958, drowned August 4, 1962 while studying marine life along the Caribbean coast at Port Limon, Costa Rica. He was born in Ada, Ohio, on November 11, 1912, and received his precollege education in the schools there. He attended Ohio Northern University where he became interested in plant ecology and from which he received his A. B. in 1933. Subsequently he taught in the public schools of North Bloomfield, Ohio, for three years and started graduate work at Ohio State University during summers. He married Betty Morris in 1935.