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Robert P. Fariss ’36

Robert Fariss ’36, January 10, 1999, in Vernonia, Oregon where he had recently moved. He was a retired employee of the U.S. Forest Service. After graduating from Reed, he earned a law degree from Northwestern School of Law, Portland and served in the U.S. Army during World II. He married Martha MacCollum ’38 in 1944. After the war, he went to work for the Veteran’s Administration in Portland and then transferred to the Forest Service, where he was an investigator of accidents on federal land. He retired in 1973. He also maintained a private practice as an attorney. After retiring, he was involved in a wide variety of activities in the Portland area. He was president of the Oregon Roadside Council and state board chairman of the Oregon State Federation of Garden Clubs. In 1990, he started a joint effort with these two groups to build and distribute bird and bat nesting boxes in forested areas throughout the state. He was also a board member of Leach Botanical Gardens and he and Martha belonged to a number of garden clubs. His other great interest was tennis, and he described himself as the "oldest varsity player in the world" when he played on the team at Portland Community College in the early ’70s. He was a founding member of the West Hills Racquet Club and continued to play tennis until several months before his death. Survivors include his daughter, Ashleen Fariss ’72, and one grandson. His wife died in 1998.

Appeared in Reed magazine: August 1999

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