Joseph Franklin Marsh ’47

Joseph Franklin Marsh ’47 died in Athens, West Virginia, on December 11, 2009. He attended Athens High School, enlisted in the Navy and was sent to Dartmouth. He was commissioned in 1944 and served as gunnery officer on a destroyer in the Pacific. He returned to major in government and to graduate in 1947 as a Phi Beta Kappa. He received a fellowship for study at the National Institute for Public Affairs in Washington, D.C. After two years at Harvard, where he earned an M.P.A. in 1949, he did graduate work at Oxford University as a Rotary Foundation Fellow. In 1952 he returned to Hanover as an instructor in the “Great Issues” course. He rose to become an assistant professor of economics and in 1959 returned to Athens to become president of Concord College, where he served for 14 years. He then served as president of Waynesburg College in Pennsylvania for nine years. He was awarded emeritus status by both colleges and in 1984 accepted a one-year appointment as vice president for development at the United World College of the American West in New Mexico. During his presidencies he served on 32 public and private boards, commissions and volunteer organizations. He continued with 14 in retirement. He was awarded an honorary L.L.D. by Davis-Elkin College in 1968 and doctor of humane letters by Aldeson-Broaddus College in 1982.