Stephen H. Spurr; Botanist, Ex-President, University of Texas

Stephen H. Spurr, 72, an internationally known botanist who was fired as president of the University of Texas in 1974 purportedly for being “politically insensitive” about whom he invited to the school’s lavish cocktail parties before football games. Moving to Austin to assume the presidency in 1971 after 19 years of teaching at the University of Michigan, Spurr continued as professor of botany and public affairs on the Texas campus until his retirement in 1983. He invented the parallax wedge and multiscope forestry tools, founded the journal “Forest Science” and wrote “Forest Ecology,” which was translated into Chinese and Russian. On Wednesday in Austin of a heart attack.