Born on Aug. 4, 1933 in St. Peter, Ill., and was raised there on his family's farm. Ed grew up in the Great Depression and during World War II. In high school, he was determined to get a college education, and once at the University of Illinois, he majored at Agricultural Education. He excelled in school and was encouraged to continue his education. He earned an M.S. Degree in Agronomy-Soils, with minors in Chemistry and Agricultural Economics in 1957. Runge earned a Ph. D. in Agronomy and Soil Science from Iowa State University in 1963. He married Patricia Rice in 1956. Runge taught agronomy and soil science courses, while also conducting research, first at Iowa State University, then at the University of Illinois from 1966-1973. From 1973-1980 he was a professor and Chair of Agronomy at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and spent the rest of his career at Texas A & M University as the Head of the Soil and Crop Science Department, and then the Billie B. Turner Chair in Production Agronomy. He is an Emeritus Professor and still works part-time at the Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture. At Texas A & M he began a long-term friendship with Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug. Runge also traveled and worked extensively abroad, doing soil science research and performing extension services in places as diverse as New Zealand, Indonesia, Brazil, Africa, and Burma (Myanmar). Runge was an early advocate for alternative uses for corn, emphasizing demand enhancement, with ethanol production as one way to increase demand for corn. He also advocated the promise of using other biomass to produce fuel.
From the description of An interview with Ed Runge / Ed Runge ; Mark DePue, interviewer. 2008. (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library). WorldCat record id: 291098798
