Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Tech physics professor was 'quite a gentleman'

Argen Duncan El Defensor Chieftain Reporter

Former New Mexico Tech professor of physics and Manhattan project scientist Marvin H. Wilkening, 88, died Sunday at the Good Samaritan Village.

He will be remembered for his kindness and his smile.

Wilkening came to Tech in 1948 and worked as an atmospheric physicist and professor.

He studied radon to track air flow in mines and caves and on islands and mountains. The work led him to travel internationally and help establish the atmospheric research facility Langmuir Laboratory.

"He believed in service to his country and his state and his city and his home," said his daughter, Laurel Wilkening, who also became a scientist.

She said her father participated in the Socorro Rotary Club and helped with the creation of Escondida Lake and the establishment of the Good Samaritan Village.

An active member of St. Paul's United Methodist Church, Wilkening helped to raise money for the current building. He attended church as long as he had the physical ability.

He also served on commissions dealing with conservation and radon in abandoned uranium mines.

Wilkening grew up in the Missouri woods and always had a love of hunting and fishing.

His daughter said he took numerous young people to the family cabin in the Gila National Forest for their first taste of New Mexico's high country. Laurel Wilkening said he wanted young people to appreciate nature. She said he was a very kind, gentle man.

"And he had a big smile for everyone," Laurel Wilkening said.

Tech Public Information Specialist George Zamora said Wilkening was a very modest man. When Zamora wrote stories about Wilkening's accomplishments in the 1990s, the scientist had a mild-mannered, low-key demeanor, Zamora said.

Wilkening was born March 13, 1918, on his family's farm near Oakridge, Mo., according to an obituary from the family.

Laurel Wilkening said he was "movie-star handsome" as a young man. He ran track and played basketball in high school and college. His senior year in college at Southeast Missouri State University, he edited the yearbook, served as president of the drama club and participated on the debate team.

Wilkening graduated in 1939 and taught high school until moving to Chicago for graduate work in physics, according to his obituary. He worked with the Manhattan Project in World War II.

In 1942, as part of scientist Enrique Fermi's group, he helped sustain the first human-initiated nuclear reaction in Chicago, Zamora said. He said because of Wilkening's expertise in instrumentation, the physicist probably got to see a broader spectrum of the Manhattan Project than other scientists.

According to his obituary, Wilkening and his wife, Ruby, moved from Chicago to Oak Ridge, Tenn., then to Hanford, Wash., and eventually Los Alamos. Zamora said he witnessed the Trinity explosion.

"He was quite a gentleman," Zamora said. "And there was a large amount of history he was involved with — directly involved with."

After World War II, Wilkening finished his doctorate at Illinois Institute of Technology before moving to Socorro.

"There was a special place in his heart for his students and research associates and the many international students he advised and nurtured as dean of graduate studies at New Mexico Tech," the obituary says.

Professor of Physics David Raymond said Wilkening met him in Hilo, Hawaii, and brought him to Tech in 1973. He called Wilkening kind, gentle and helpful.

Wilkening was a low-key, knowledgeable, nice mentor, Raymond said.

"It was good for me," he said.

Wilkening and his wife were married a little more than 60 years — a relationship that began in 1942.

"He and my mother had a love match that lasted until the day she died," Laurel Wilkening said.

The couple had two children, Laurel and Wesley Wilkening.

Laurel Wilkening and her husband, Godfrey Sill, live in Tucson, Ariz. Wesley Wilkening lives in Albuquerque with his wife, Mary, and daughter, Whitney.

aduncan@dchieftain.com

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