Morgan S. Odell; Nurtured Lewis & Clark College

Morgan S. Odell, the one-time chaplain of Occidental College and chairman of that school’s department of philosophy and religion, who took over a failing college in Portland and turned it into Lewis & Clark College and Law School, died Dec. 26.

Odell was 90 and had retired as Lewis & Clark president in 1960.

In 1941, Albany College trustees were seeking someone to take over their rundown, destitute institution, and Odell was recommended by his boss, Occidental President Remson D. Bird.

Odell, a Methodist, was at first reluctant to leave the comfort of Occidental for a Presbyterian campus whose trustees were ready to abandon it as a financial drain.

He took a yearlong leave of absence, in case he changed his mind, and with the help of some Portland bankers and alumni raised $50,000 to pay off debts and purchase the 65-acre Frank Lloyd Wright estate in Portland as a new campus.

Odell began with 12 faculty members and 145 students. When he retired, the school had changed its name to honor the two Northwest explorers and had a faculty of 70 teaching 1,200 students.

After his retirement, Odell served as interim dean of the American University of Cairo and vice president for development at Beirut College for Women. He died in Pasadena, where he and his wife, who died in 1981, had moved in 1976. They had 3 sons, 9 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.