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John Arthur
Dearinger |
Updated:
04/24/07
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John Arthur Dearinger
received the Civil Engineering Career Achievement Award.
John Arthur Dearinger, known
for life as Jack, was born on March 15, 1922 in his mother's family
home in Lexington, Kentucky to June Lewis Dearinger and Grace W. Jack.
He was a descendant of pioneer Kentuckians, including several Revolutionary
and Civil War veterans (both sides), most of whom were farmers and carpenters.
He graduated from Henry Clay High School in 1939 and then attended UK,
but interrupted his education at the outbreak of World War II to enlist
in the Army.
He attended Officer Candidate
School and served for two years in Europe as a member of the Army Corps
of Engineers, 35th Engineer Combat Battalion. He was a platoon commander,
company commander, and group operations officer; rising to the rank
of captain. He was at the Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of
Europe. At war's end, age 23, he returned, and made it a point to read
Tolstoy's War and Peace.
Following the war, Jack returned to UK where he received a BSCE degree
in 1946, worked as a graduate assistant instructor for two years, and
was awarded a MSCE degree in 1948. From that year until 1955 he was
employed as chief engineer for the Kentucky Division of State Parks
during which time he oversaw the construction of the infrastructure
of the state parks.
After working for the Realty
Farm Development Company in Lexington, he returned to UK as an assistant
professor in 1957. He achieved the rank of full professor in 1976 and,
at his retirement in 1991, professor emeritus. For many years, he was
in charge of the surveying program, and eventually assumed responsibility
for its annual operation, most notably when it was a full-summer course
held in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. His preeminence in his field
led one of his colleagues, in an annual peer evaluation, to call him
"Mr. Survey Education in Kentucky."
As a licensed Professional Engineer and Professional Surveyor, Jack
was one of central Kentucky's most sought-after surveyors, especially
in Woodford County, where he and his family lived in a house of his
design beginning in 1960.
At UK, he served in the University Senate, was a member of the Graduate
Faculty and served on several university committees. In 1971, he was
elected to Tau Beta Pi as Eminent Engineer and in 1978 was awarded the
R. E. Shaver Memorial Award for Excellence in Teaching. He was a Lifetime
Member and a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, for
which he served as chairman of the publications and land surveying committees.
He was a recipient of several grants and published many articles. He
was co-author of Cross Section and Pavement Surface (1970)
and a contributor to Surveying for Civil Engineers (1981).
In 1981, he taught a series
of graduate-level seminars at the University of Liverpool in England.
Jack was an avid naturalist, conservationist, and preservationist. He
was an expert on streams and rivers and flora and fauna, which he recorded
in photographs. In the family tradition, he was an accomplished carpenter,
woodworker, and maker of fine furniture. His sincere belief in the continuity
of nature dictated that he design and construct his own coffin, made
from the walnut trees that had grown on his property in Woodford County.
He was a founding member of the Woodford County Human Rights Commission,
which fought for civil rights of all Americans; American Civil Liberties
Union; Audubon Society; Nature Conservancy and Sierra Club.
For almost 60 years, Jack was married to Anna Louise Lane of Fayette
and Woodford counties, a descendant herself of pioneer Kentuckians.
He was the father of Pam (Allen) Hutton of Lawrenceburg, Ky., David
B. Dearinger of New York City and Boston, and Kevin Lane Dearinger of
New York City; grandfather of Christy (Robert) Bicknell, and great-grandfather
of Lane and Jenna Bicknell, all of Lawrenceburg. He was a member of
the Holy Spirit Parish and a Fellow of the Newman Center Foundation
in Lexington.
Jack Dearinger died on October 20, 2006, and was buried with full military
honors in the Lexington Cemetery in the county in which he was born.
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