New lectureship will spotlight natural resources and the environment | Virginia Tech News
That passion – reflective of John Hosner’s deep commitment to the field of natural resources – is what Tenna Hosner would like to see echoed in a new lecture series that she has endowed in her husband’s name. Starting this academic year, the Dr. John F. Hosner Distinguished Lecture Endowment will bring leaders to the college who can connect natural resources science and research with challenges affecting communities both locally and globally.
“John was a person who wanted to make a difference in the world,” Tenna Hosner said. “When he invited speakers to the college each year, he selected them carefully. I remember being electrified by some of the speakers he invited, and I believe that this lectureship will honor his memory and legacy.”
A legacy of steady determination
John Hosner joined the Virginia Tech faculty as a forestry professor and head of the newly established Department of Forestry and Wildlife – then situated in what was then the College of Agriculture – in 1961.
“I can tell you that the No. 1 priority for John in building the department was to get the cream of the crop of professors,” said Tenna Hosner. “He’d call schools and ask them to name their best graduate students and he’d bring them to the department and hire the best ones as professors.”
His efforts saw student enrollment in the department grow from 72 to 750, while its faculty grew from four to 62 by the time the College of Forestry and Wildlife – now the College of Natural Resources and Environment – was founded in 1992. Since then, the college has routinely ranked as one of the best places to study natural resources in the country.
Donald Orth, who worked with John Hosner during those formative years, remembers him as a visionary.
“Hosner was instrumental in nurturing what is now a top college in natural resources and environment from the small department he led in 1961,” said Orth, who was recently honored with emeritus status. “His unfaltering vision was an inspiration to all who knew him.”
Tenna Hosner saw John Hosner’s determination firsthand.
“John was the love of my life, and every day I saw how hard he worked to create a college,” said Tenna Hosner, a special education teacher in area schools for more than 20 years. “I had never been around someone who was after something so significant in life, and I wanted to support that and help every way that I could.”
That drive led to numerous accomplishments for John Hosner, including a fellowship with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Gifford Pinchot Medal, the highest honor awarded by the Society of American Foresters. The John F. Hosner Legacy Fund continues to support students and programming in the college, while honoring Hosner’s vision.
His drive was also reflected in his athletic ambitions. An accomplished runner who established numerous age-group records for 1500 meter and 1-mile races, his efforts were highlighted in a 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated.
“John would know the people he had to chase in any race, the people who he had to target for records,” said Tenna Hosner. “Sometimes that was a mistake. I remember one race where he and the record holder went back and forth the whole time, only to find out at the end that some unknown runner in their age group had passed both of them.”
