Rhodes, Leland S., 1889-1958

Leland S. Rhodes was born December 6, 1889 in Groton, New York. He graduated from Cornell University in 1911 and worked as an engineer with the Spring Brook Water Supply Co. in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, from 1911 to 1917. He was a civil engineer at Bethlehem Steel Co. in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, from 1917 to 1919. Rhodes married Christine Wood on April 22, 1919. In that same year, he was named an assistant professor of civil engineering at Penn State. He retired with professor emeritus status in 1955. While at the university, Rhodes served as the president of the American Association of University Professors, president of the local chapter of the American Society for Engineering Education, and secretary and president of the local chapter of Society of Sigma Xi. He was also a member of Phi Mu Alpha, the honorary music society. Rhodes wrote a column, "Sky Notes," in the Centre Daily Times for over thirty years, starting in 1927 to tell astronomy fans what to look for in the night sky. He died January 11, 1958. Christine Rhodes established a scholarship in her husband's honor for a promising junior studying civil engineering. She also gave a collection of books inscribed by numerous notable people of the twentieth century, such as Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf, Robert Frost, Ida Tarbell, and Helen Keller. She had a lifelong, active interest in music and the arts.