In Memorial

Dr. Eric F. Maurer

January 12, 1961 - December 28, 2024

Eric F. Maurer, first and foremost a proud dad, and also a  dedicated educator and passionate advocate for environmental conservation, passed away on December 28, 2024, at the age of 63. Born on January 12, 1961, Eric lived a life characterized by his commitment to teaching, research, and his deep appreciation of the natural world.

Eric was a distinguished faculty member at the University of Cincinnati, where he taught Conservation Biology and Environmental Law and Policy. His academic journey was complemented by an impressive educational background, earning a Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolution from the University of Kansas in 1994, an M.S. in Ecology from the University of Kentucky in 1992, and a B.S. in Psychology and Zoology (Postbacc) from the University of Georgia in 1983.

Throughout his career, Eric was recognized for his exceptional teaching and mentorship. He received numerous accolades, including the University Honors Excellence in Teaching Award in 2009 and the title of "Most Inspiring Faculty Member" for multiple years by graduating students. Among his proudest accomplishments were honors from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as recognition as a USDA National Research Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow.

Eric's research took him to various significant locations, including Port Barrow and Brooks Range in Alaska, the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, and Gujarat in India, where he worked diligently to purify water for local communities. His work not only reflected his professional dedication but also his profound belief in the importance of sustainable practices and community-focused environmental stewardship.

He was known not only for his academic and research contributions but also for his character. A devoted father, Eric was defined by his warmth and a dry sense of humor. He had a deep love for photography, the arts and an unwavering affinity for nature, which he cherished and celebrated in his daily life.

Eric is survived by his son, Lucas Maurer, his mother, Judy Maurer, and his sister, Tracy Maurer. He was preceded in death by his father, George Maurer.

Visitation with family will be held on January 18, 2025, from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM at Vitt, Stermer & Anderson Funeral Home, located at 4619 Delhi Pike, Cincinnati, OH 45238.  Memorial contributions in Eric's honor may be made to the  Arbor Day Foundation (https://www.arborday.org/) or the American Indian College Fund (https://collegefund.org/). 

Eric F. Maurer's legacy will endure through the countless lives he touched as a teacher, mentor, and dedicated environmentalist. His passion for education and the natural world will be remembered by all who had the privilege of knowing him.

Dr. Gary Douglas "Doug" Winget

March 27, 1939 - August 22, 2024

Dr. Gary Douglas “Doug” Winget began his remarkable life on March 27, 1939, in Dayton, Ohio, where he was born to Frank and Margaret (Corderman) Winget.

His parents divorced when he and his sister Susan were quite young, prompting a move to the Centerville, Ohio farm of his maternal grandparents. From his grandfather, Doug learned about farm life, gaining skills such as driving a tractor at age 12, caring for chickens, cows, pigs, and rabbits, learning to repair farm equipment, growing a garden, and locking his little sister in a dog pen!

Intellectually curious and academically motivated, he quickly earned a reputation as a top student. One story involves him eagerly taking over a lecture from an exasperated middle school substitute teacher whom he repeatedly corrected during a chemistry lesson. Like all junior scientists, he had a basement laboratory, this one stocked with lab equipment he scrounged from a summer job at a paint company. He was excited to score a rusted container of discarded WWII sea dye marker, meant to color acres of ocean as a distress signal. When a storm flooded the basement, the dye was activated, coloring everything a neon green that was nearly impossible to remove. The family never knew what they would find in the refrigerator – often it was an experiment in progress. To him, life was a science fair. Thus, no one was surprised when he was named the top state chemistry student in high school. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Miami University, majoring in chemistry and botany.

Skating with friends during Christmas break at a Dayton ice rink, freshman Doug encountered a pretty skater named Sandy who was wearing a Miami sweatshirt. To “break the ice,” he asked if she was a Miami student – and of course she was. And so began a “Miami Merger” love story that produced a marriage of nearly 50 years and three children.

After completing his undergraduate and master’s degrees at Miami, he worked at the Miamisburg Mound Atomic Energy Commission Laboratory in Miamisburg, Ohio, all the while planning to go back to school for a Ph.D.  This plan came to fruition when, in 1963, he began a Ph.D. program as a research assistant in biochemistry at Michigan State University. Under the guidance of Professor Norman Good, Doug studied photosynthesis, as he defined it “the biochemistry of light- driven ATP synthesis (photophosphorylation).”

Before Doug could complete his dissertation, he was recruited to join the faculty at the University of Cincinnati as a plant physiologist in the Biological Sciences Department. Because the UC job paid $8,600.00 per year – nearly double his graduate student stipend – and came with health insurance benefits for the family, he decided to take the position and complete his Ph.D. while he worked.

Describing the challenges of that time, he wrote:

In September 1966, we loaded all our personal belongings in a trailer and pulled them from Lansing, Michigan to Dayton. We rented a house in Cincinnati and moved in, with no beds (sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags), no refrigerator (buying a bag of ice daily for the cooler), a card table, and four chairs. I reported in at the department just before classes were to begin, only to discover that the professor who hired me had resigned as department head, and Dr. Jack Gottschang was acting head. His first message to me when I entered his office was that they had been looking for me and weren’t sure whether I would show up. His second message was that I would be teaching general biology to the biology majors, contrary to what the letter of appointment had said. When I protested, his reply was “if you want this job, you’ll do what I say.” I could ill afford to protest any further, so, two days later, I walked out on a stage in Wilson Auditorium to face 450 freshman students to teach a course I had never had from a book I had not read.

Trying to convince Doug to stay at MSU to complete the Ph.D., Norman Good had commented that UC had little to offer as a research institution. When Doug inspected his assigned laboratory at UC, he understood that comment. The lab contained only two handmade pipettes, a gas refrigerator, and a seed germination cabinet. University money budgeted to outfit a lab had to be shared with two other new hires. Doug wrote: “I brought some glassware and chemicals from my ‘basement lab,’ scrounged other equipment from general surplus at the medical center and hospital, and ‘borrowed’ other items from other labs in the department. The bulk of my ‘seed money’ went for a tabletop centrifuge that I needed to separate chloroplasts from other cellular components.”

Due to these and other difficulties, progress on the Ph.D. dissertation was slow, but he finally finished it and earned the degree in 1967. Doug then set about helping UC to become a research institution that Dr. Good would have been proud to recommend. He was promoted to associate professor of biological sciences in 1971, and then full professor in 1981.

During his 35-year tenure at UC, Doug served on multiple departmental committees, supervised 14 student theses, counseled and coached numerous other undergraduate and graduate students, conducted research on multiple plant physiology and medical botany topics, taught introductory as well as advanced level courses, authored and co-authored articles, reports, and abstracts, and applied for and received several major grants. By design or by chance he became the “go-to” guy in the department, advising on problems and serving on committees involving the facility, the computers, the laboratory equipment, the phones, the personnel, and pretty much everything else connected with operating an academic department. On any given day, he could be found preparing a lecture, meeting with a student, checking on an experiment, discussing a research question with a colleague, diagnosing a problem with a piece of laboratory equipment, fixing that piece of laboratory equipment, reading an abstract, or grading a stack of tests, sometimes simultaneously.

With his retirement from UC in 2001, Doug ended his career as a university professor, but he was not done being a scientist. He volunteered at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden’s Center for Conservation and Research on Endangered Wildlife (CREW) where the staff of botanists, zoologists, and other scientists named him an Honorary Senior Scientist. At CREW, he participated in a field trip to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to study Todsen’s pennyroyal, an endangered mint endemic to the mountains of New Mexico. His research contributed to a paper he coauthored on the propagation and cryopreservation of the plant. He researched the Northern Wild Monkshood, a member of the buttercup family that is found in only a few states, with a small population in Northeast Ohio. His efforts helped CREW determine that airport security x-ray screening could adversely affect the DNA of frozen animal semen, resulting in revisions to the shipping practices of zoo conservation programs.

His work at CREW was a source of solace when he suffered the devastating loss of his college sweetheart Sandy to cancer in 2008. He joined a grief support group where he met Dorothy “Dottie” (Tomes) St. John, a widow coping with her own heartbreaking loss. At that time, both Doug and Dottie believed that romantic love was a part of their past, but they happily learned they were wrong. And so, in 2012, Doug started a new married life with Dottie. Enduring the many challenges of an incurable lung disease, Doug was sustained by Dottie’s unstinting devotion to his care, ever thankful to have had almost 12 years of this late-in-life loving marriage.

Donations in Doug’s memory may be made to the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden Center for Conservation and Research on Endangered Wildlife (CREW); the University of Cincinnati Foundation; the American Lung Association; or to a charity of your choice. 

Dr. Carl "Bert" Albert Huether

1938 - June 17, 2022

Carl (aka Bert) Albert Huether Jr., 84, of Cincinnati, OH, passed away on July 17, 2022. He had known his wife, Carol Huether (nee Haeckl) since high school. They were married for 63 years. Bert and Carol have three children, Laurie, Linda and Carl who are married to Don, Howard and Maggie, respectively. He was proud of his children and grandchildren (Jonathon, Joseph, Megan and Matt) and enjoyed gathering his family together as much as possible, with travel being the main enjoyment, with trips to TN and KY lakes, Alaska, and Rhine and Danube river cruises.Bert grew up in Clifton, a suburb north of Cincinnati with a sister, Lou (nee Crawford) and parents Carl and Gertrude Huether.

He and Carol graduated from Hughes High School where he played baseball, bowled, and played the trombone. Bert graduated from The Ohio State University in 1959 where he played two years of baseball and marched for one year in The Best D*** Band in the Land (TBDBITL). Bert and Carol also married in 1959 before driving across country so he could fulfill his U.S. Navy responsibilities (two years) on Kodiak Island, Alaska. They were introduced to wonderful fishing, digging clams and still have friends that they made during that time.

Bert had wanted to go to graduate school and after the navy, they moved to North Carolina where he got his master’s in science. They then packed a trailer and left for California along with their first child and dog. He graduated with his PhD in Genetics in 1966 and took a position at the University of Cincinnati. They packed up the trailer again and left for Cincinnati with two children and the same dog. He spent the next 40 years at UC as a professor of biology. He was proud of his teaching (Human Genetics and Biology in a Human Context) which reached thousands of students. Bert also helped in developing the UC greenhouse, conducting teacher institutes (funded by the National Science Foundation), creating the Academy of Fellows for Teaching and Learning (AFTL), expanding Arts and Sciences, helping the Honors College to be a university-wide system and establishing the Genetic Counseling program, now housed at Children’s Hospital.

After retiring, he got involved with the UC Emerita Board and helped expand and guide it to its present state. From college through his early eighties, Bert enjoyed playing handball with friends which were always competitive matches that usually ended with a lunch. He also coached his son’s and daughter’s baseball teams and even tried his hand at soccer, which at the time he knew little about. Bert was incredibly giving of his time and effort to numerous organizations. In retirement, he became a Master Gardener and volunteered at the Cincinnati Zoo for many years before health issues became a problem. He loved being out in nature and weekends could find him chopping wood for the fireplace or adding trees and plants to their large yard. His friends and family were incredibly important to him and Bert truly enjoyed finding out about people’s lives. He loved asking questions, especially ones dealing with life goals, such as “what do you want to do with your life?” Each of his grandchildren can attest to his inquisitive nature! Bert will be truly missed by those who knew him. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Genetic Counseling Program at Children’s Hospital: (https://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/education/clinical/student-grad/genetic-counseling/endowment, click, “make a gift now” or to the UC Emeriti Board: (www.foundation.uc.edu/give, select “search funds by name” and enter “Emeriti Scholarship” (S201318).

Dr. Susan Dunford

1946 - Feb. 19, 2016

Dr. Dr. Susan Ann Dunford, 69, passed away February 19, 2016 after a three year battle with lung cancer. Her intellect, determination, and empathy is survived by her loving husband John and daughter Emily Dunford. As well as her four remaining siblings; Dennis Sovonick, Ed Sovonick, Doug Sovonick, and Patti Krebs.

Her love of plants and people was clear in nearly 40 years at the University of Cincinnati, teaching Biology, Plant Biology & Plant Physiology. She got great joy from time outdoors with her family and friends, tending her gardens, teaching, and collecting fashionable earrings (usually plant oriented). Her 'tiny but tough' spirit, quick wit, and love for all she encountered will forever be in our hearts. Celebration of Life on March 5, 2016 11:30am-1:30pm held at Norman Chapel at Spring Grove Cemetery 4521 Spring Grove Ave. Cincinnati, OH 45232.