In Memoriam: Willetta Lueshen, 1914-1989

Abstract

Willetta Lueshen, the daughter of William and Amy (Bonsall) Walters, was born at Dow City, Iowa, on 21 December 1914, and died at Wisner, Nebraska, on 26 May 1989. Willetta attended Dow City High School and Wayne State Teachers College. After teaching in Iowa and rural Nebraska, she married John Lueshen on 8 August 1941. On their 160-acre farm near Wisner, Nebraska, John and Willetta left 20 acres as wildlife habitat, planting corn for deer and popcorn for quail and pheasant. She banded her first bird, a Brown Thrasher, in September 1955 and thereafter banded approximately 2,000 birds each year, with special emphasis on migrating Harris' Sparrows, until arthritis curtailed her activities in 1974. She taught bird identification classes at Northeast Technical College in Norfolk, Nebraska, from 1972 until her death. An irrepressible enthusiast and a productive worker for conservation causes, she was the first woman to receive the Nebraska Outstanding Wildlife Conservationist Award (1967). She served as President of the Nebraska Ornithologists Union and held continuous office in the Inland Bird Banding Association from 1962, serving as secretary, president (1969-1973) and editor of Inland Bird Banding Newsletter, later Inland Regional News, from 1979 until her death. Willetta joined the AOU in 1952, indexed the Auk for five years (volumes 85-89, 1968-1972), and became an Elective Member in 1970. She will be remembered through the Willetta Lueshen Fund for Harris' Sparrow Research and the Willetta Lueshen Student Membership Award, both set up by the Inland Bird Banding Association. A longer memorial will appear in North American Bird Bander. She is survived by two sisters, two brothers, and her husband.