John Curtis Gowan; Authority on Gifted Children

A memorial service will be held Dec. 27 for John Curtis Gowan, an early authority on gifted children and a member of the founding faculty at California State University, Northridge.

Gowan was 74 when he died Dec. 2 in a Woodland Hills hospital after brain surgery.

A Cal State Northridge spokesman said Gowan, who lived in Westlake, became interested in gifted children after the Russians gained superiority in space with the 1957 launch of Sputnik. He formed the National Assn. of Gifted Children the following year. He was the group’s executive director and president from 1975 to 1979 and over the years wrote more than 100 articles and a dozen books on gifted children, teacher evaluation, child development and creativity.

Gowan was only 17 when he entered Harvard in 1929 and earned his undergraduate degree four years later. He earned a master’s degree, moved to California where he was employed as a counselor and teacher at Culver Military Academy and then at UCLA, where he earned a doctorate in 1952.

His first book was “How to Educate Gifted Children,” and he followed that with “Educational Guidance of the Ablest” and “Development of the Creative Individual.”

He was on the Northridge faculty from the school’s inception in 1953 until 1975 when he retired with emeritus status.

While at Northridge, he developed a program to train campus counselors and had been a counselor, researcher, Fulbright lecturer and visiting professor at schools ranging from the University of Singapore to Canterbury and Massey universities in New Zealand.

He also served as editor of Gifted Child Quarterly.

Gowan is survived by his wife, Jane, a son and daughter. A memorial service will be held at 2:30 p.m. Dec. 27 at the Faculty Center on the Northridge campus.