William L. Kurtz ’52
William L. Kurtz ’52 passed away in Amado, Arizona, on August 15, 2021. Bill was born on February 1, 1931, in New York City and graduated from Briarcliff (New York) High School in 1948. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1952 with a degree in earth sciences and geology. Bill was a member of Kappa Sigma. In 1955 Bill received an M.S. in geology at the University of Arizona and then spent most of his career as a geologist in Nevada and Arizona. Bill also served in the U.S. Army during the period following graduate school. After military service he started his career as a geologist with Bear Creek Mining Co. in Arizona in the late 1950s and early 1960s, spent a year (1959) in the Philippines with Atlas Consolidated Mine, rejoined Bear Creek, and then, in 1965, joined American Smelting and Refining, also in Arizona, serving in various exploration managing capacities until his retirement in the early 1990s. Bill and his wife, Ellie, were married in 1961 and enjoyed many productive years in Arizona, participating together in community activities. An example would be a sizeable library collection of more than 2,000 books, maps, and artifacts relating to the area they donated to the Tohono O’odham Cultural Center & Museum for what was to become the Salcido-Amarillas Western Research Library at the Historic Canoa Ranch, near Tucson. Ellie and their two daughters survive him.
