Dr. Franklin D. Keim provided outstanding agronomy leadership as a teacher and an administrator with over forty years of service to the University and Nebraska. His primary interest was in genetics inspiring many young men to pursue genetics and related fields as their life’s work. His success is evidenced through the large number of Nebraska trained agronomists who hold positions of responsibility and prominence throughout the U.S. and the world.
We are met to do honor to a man whom many of you knew personally as a colleague, a neighbor, and a friend. He was widely recognized for his outstanding leadership in the field of Agronomy both as a teacher as an administrator. His service to the University and the State of Nebraska covered a period of more than forty years. His primary interest was in the field of genetics which he taught for over thirty years. Through his contacts with students in beginning genetics he inspired many young men to pursue this and related fields as their life’s work. His success in this regard is evidenced through the large number of Nebraska trained agronomists who are now in positions of responsibility and prominence throughout the U.S. and the world.
Dr. Franklin David Keim was born September 10, 1886 at Hardy, Nebraska, and grew up on a farm near Davenport, Nebraska. He never lost his interest in farm life and farm people. He taught school in Nuckolls and Thayer counties from 1905 to 1908. He received his teacher’s certificate from Peru State Normal in 1909, was principal of Chester High School during 1909-10 and was Superintendent of Schools at Blue Springs 1910-11. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Nebraska in 1914 and 1918 respectively. He joined the University of Nebraska faculty as an assistant in Agronomy in 1914. On June 12 of the same year Alice Mary Voigt became Mrs. Keim. To this union were born Virginia and Wayne. Virginia is now Mrs. William Honstead, a faculty wife at Kansas State College, Manhattan, Kansas. Wayne is now teaching genetics at Purdue University.
Dr. Keim became extension specialist in Agronomy in 1916 and in 1918 was promoted to a full professor in Agronomy. He received his Ph.D. degree from Cornell University in 1927. He served as acting chairman of the Agronomy Department during 1930-32 and as chairman from 1932-52, and as acting chairman for an interim in 1955.
Professional Interests and Awards
In 1937 Dr. Keim was elected Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy and served as President of the Society in 1943. He was the recipient of two noteworthy plaques for his outstanding service and valuable contributions. First, in 1950 he received one from the Nebraska Crop Improvement Association. Then in 1955 he was presented a plaque from the Nebraska Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. He was a member of the Agronomy Journal Editorial Board from 1946 until the time of his death. He was also the Society Historian. A leader in many organizations, Dr. Keim was a member of the Nebraska Academy of Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences of which he was Secretary of Section 0 at the time of his death. He also belongs to the Genetics Society of America, Sigma XI, Gamma Sigma Delta, Alpha Zeta, the Nebraska Agronomy Club, Farm House Fraternity, and Innocents Society at the University of Nebraska.
His special agronomic interests were plant breeding and genetics, weed control, and ecological studies of native grasses with reference to pasture utilization.
Foreign Experiences
Dr. Keim traveled widely in the interest of agriculture, attending the Grassland Congress in Wales in 1937 and serving on the staff of the Biarritz American University in France as an Agriculture instructor for World War II personnel. During the summer of 1948, Dr. Keim along with 23 other North American Agronomists was invited as a guest of the United Fruit Company to inspect their plantations in the Republics of Honduras and Guatemala.
Community Interests
Dr. Keim was a director of the Union National Life Insurance Company in Lincoln and a director of the Farmers State Bank at Davey. He was active in church work at the Warren Methodist Church. He was a Mason, a Shriner, a member of the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, and State Historical Society and Honorary member of the Nebraska Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers.
The following excerpt is from an editorial tribute to Dr. Keim in the Lincoln Journal.
“Dr. Keim in a personal sense is irreplacable just as the scientific improvements he brought to Agronomy are irrevocable. But he leaves a magnificent legacy to Agriculture and to citizenship. He attained his eminence among people with whom he was born. Distinction found him because he merited it. Others can find it the same if they choose to follow his course.”
On September 6, 1957, the Agronomy Buildings on the campus of the Nebraska College of Agriculture, where buildings had not previously been named after people, was renamed KEIM HALL in Dr. Keim’s honor. The inscription on the plaque placed in the main entrance to Keim Hall truly describes the gift which Dr. F.D. Keim left to his generation, “He Taught and Inspired Many in the Science of Agronomy and in the Principles of Living.”
