Remembering Ron 



William M. Coli 



Department of Plant, Soil, & Insect Sciences, University of Massachusetts 



By now, orcharding and University communities 

 all over the world have learned that we have all lost a 

 rare and unique individual: Dr. Ron Prokopy. As Wes 

 Autio put it so well in a recent email, "Ron's boundless 

 support of the apple industry will be sorely missed, and 

 his extensive research contributions will never be for- 

 gotten." 



As Ron 

 would have 

 wanted, and in 

 spite of the 

 depth of our 

 feelings of loss, 

 I hope we can 

 all focus on how 

 he lived his life 

 rather than on 

 this untimely 

 loss. I'm sure 

 there will be a 

 lot of sharing of 

 stories at the 

 memorial ser- 

 vice planned for 

 May 22 at his 

 beloved farm in 

 Conway. For 

 those who can 

 not attend, I'd 

 like to offer just 

 a few recollec- 

 tions about the 

 29 years I have 

 known Ron. 



The first time I ever met him, I knew right away 

 that Ron was not your typical University faculty mem- 

 ber. I don't know if it was the longer than normal hair 

 style, the South American knit bag that he always car- 

 ried with him (and which inevitably contained bags of 

 neatly sliced, home grown carrots), or his propensity to 

 take his little "rests" (cat naps that he would always 

 take while we were on route to some place or another). 



When he first arrived at UMass Amherst in 1975, 

 he was already well known in Entomology circles for 

 his ground-breaking and innovative work developing ef- 

 fective, multi-colored, sticky sphere traps for monitor- 

 ing fruit flies. The story goes that when another fac- 

 ulty member (Dr. John Stoffolano) was introducing Ron 



to the clerical 

 staff in Femald 

 Hall, he was ob- 

 viously excited 

 to have this new 

 high-powered 

 behavioral 

 ecologist in the 

 department . 

 John, assuming 

 perhaps that the 

 clencal staff was 

 familiar with 

 Ron's earlier re- 

 search said: 

 "This is Ron 

 Prokopy, our 

 new faculty Ex- 

 tension Ento- 

 mologist. You 

 know, he's the 

 guy with the red 

 and yellow 

 sticky balls!!" 

 Once all present 

 stopped laugh- 

 ing, John told 

 them what he really meant to say. 



While working on a special research project on traps 

 for the blueberry maggot fly with Ron, I continued to 

 gain a better perspective on this unique guy. I learned 

 that he was about the hardest working person I'd ever 

 known. There was never a single field day that Ron 

 wouldn't be out there counting flies with me. When the 

 data were finally analyzed, he was insistent that we 

 write the results up for a paper to submit to an Ento- 



Fruit Notes, Volume 69, Spring, 2004 



