Vasco M. Tanner

Vasco Myron Tanner (October 29, 1892 – April 25, 1989) was an American entomologist from Utah, and professor of zoology at Brigham Young University. He published over 140 scientific articles, mostly focusing on insects but also researching birds, mammals, reptiles and fishes,[1] and founded the journal The Great Basin Naturalist.[2]

Vasco M. Tanner
Born(1892-10-29)October 29, 1892
Payson, Utah
DiedApril 25, 1989(1989-04-25) (aged 96)
Provo, Utah
Alma mater
Scientific career
FieldsEntomology
InstitutionsBrigham Young University
ThesisA preliminary study of the genitalia of female Coleoptera (1925)
Doctoral advisorG. F. Ferris

Early life
Tanner in the 1914 Brigham Young University yearbook

Vasco Myron Tanner was born to John Myron and Lois Ann Stevens Tanner on October 29, 1892, in Payson, Utah. He spent his childhood in farms in Indianola and Fairview, Utah.[3]:8 His younger brother Wilmer Webster Tanner became a noted herpetologist.[4] In 1909 at age 17 he moved to Provo, living with extended family while he attended Brigham Young High School for two years.[3]:13 He finished high school at the newly established North Sanpete High School.[3]:14

College and teaching

In 1912 he attended college at Brigham Young University for three years, where he majored in biology. He received a scholarship which paid for two years of his tuition there.[3]:16 He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1915.[5]

Tanner finished coursework for his master's degree in Geology from the University of Utah in 1916. While he was writing his thesis on the deltas of Lake Bonneville, he taught at Dixie Junior College in St. George, Utah. Tanner helped Ernest M. Hall to collect some of the first specimens in Dixie college's botany collection.[6] Tanner officially graduated from the University of Utah In 1920.[3]:19

Also in 1920, Tanner went back to Dixie college to teach after supervising agricultural projects in Moroni for two years and became a state crop pest inspector for Washington county, Kane county, and Iron county. He began work on his PhD at Stanford in the summers of 1921 and 1923, where David Starr Jordan, then president of Stanford, befriended him and convinced him to study entomology.[3][7] He earned his PhD from Stanford in 1925 in zoology and entomology with G. F. Ferris as his dissertation adviser. Tanner's dissertation was on the morphology of the genitalia of female beetles. Later in 1925 he accepted an appointment to be a professor of zoology and entomology at Brigham Young University and chairman of the same department.[3]:35

Brigham Young University and civic work

Tanner was the chair of the zoology and entomology department until 1958.[8] He helped construct a lakeside biological laboratory where the Provo river empties into Utah lake, where he and students studied fish and birds.[3]:44 He founded, published and edited The Great Basin Naturalist starting in 1939, through which he published many of his own papers.[9] Tanner studied beetles, especially darkling beetles and weevils, as well as herpetology and natural history of the Great Basin. By 1970 he had described around 65 species and one genus of beetles, and was commemorated in the scientific names of five species.[9] He directed the research of 48 graduate students, and published nearly 150 articles.[2] The university's insect collection doubled from 300,000 insects to over 650,000 between 1951 and 1971 when he helped collect specimens for the university.[10]

His students praised his dedication to encourage individual students and his passion for zoology.[11] In 1972 he received the Karl G. Maeser award for teaching excellence.[12] He was a fellow of the Royal Entomological Society and the Entomological Society of America.[13] While Tanner stopped teaching at age 78 in 1970, he continued work as a curator of entomology until 1981.[3]:123

In 1932, the Tanners built a home in Provo at 70 E 800 N designed by Joe Nelson[3]:68

Tanner served for 35 years as chairman of the forestry and flood control committee in Provo's chamber of commerce. As part of his work to reduce flood risk, he oversaw terracing, development of recreational facilities, and cessation of mountain grazing and planting of grasses in the Provo canyon and surrounding areas.[14] He was also chairman of the city utilities board for 20 years. There is an electrical substation named after him at the mouth of the Provo canyon, which reduced blackouts in Provo.[15] Tanner was a member of the Utah state parks and recreation commission for four years, and was president of the Sons of the Utah Pioneers for three years.[8] He was secretary and editor for the Utah Academy of Arts and Sciences for 12 years.[16] He was a Democratic state congressman candidate in 1964.[17]

Family life and legacy

Tanner met his wife Annie Atkin at Dixie college the first year he taught there.[3]:20 They were married on June 7, 1917.[18] They had five children together.[19] The Tanners also helped raise Ahmed Shayesteh from age ten, at the request of Ahmed's father, United States Minister from Iran, and BYU President Franklin S. Harris.[3]:78 On family camping trips, Vasco still prioritized specimen collection, enlisting his children to aid his search for new desert species. Annie wrote that "in the mind of a zoologist, the female of the species is only important for the part she plays in reproducing the species. This part I have played."[19]

When Annie Atkin Tanner died in 1972, Vasco gave $2000 to create the Annie Atkin Tanner literary award at Dixie college.[20] Most recently in 2015, Vasco's son Jordan Tanner gave an endowment to Dixie to continue the award, which members of the Tanner family judge.[21][22] Also in 1972, Tanner donated $10,000 to establish a curatorial entomological research fund.[3]:55 Tanner is commemorated in the names of several insect species, including Utabaenetes tanneri,[23] Eschatomoxys tanneri,[24] Cicindela repanda tanneri,[25] and the weevils Bagous tanneri[26] and Sitona tanneri.[27]

gollark: Why the 1/239?!
gollark: Surely you could just take 4 * arctan 1 or something?
gollark: Partial gollark desk reveal.
gollark: Wow, the prophecy was absolutely right, as ever.
gollark: It's also been argued that in a lot of jobs people spend a small fraction of their time actually doing work.

References
  1. Hayward, C. Lynn (1970). "Vasco M. Tanner". The Great Basin Naturalist. 30 (4): 181–189. doi:10.5962/bhl.part.5894. JSTOR 41711266.
  2. H. Duane Smith and Herbert H. Frost (1991). "Vasco Myron Tanner: 1892-1989". Journal of Mammalogy. 72 (2): 430–432. doi:10.2307/1382122. JSTOR 1382122.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  3. Smith, Carol T.; Forsyth, Carmela T. (1995). Vasco M. Tanner, Renaissance Man. Provo, Utah. OCLC 78614747.
  4. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 260. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5.
  5. Brigham Young University Commencement Exercise, 1915.
  6. 1977 Oral transcript of interview of V.M. Tanner with Gott Dixie college special collections, 76-001
  7. Oral history interview with Vasco M. Tanner, conducted by Millard L. Meanea on 12 August 1975 for the Joint Oral History Program of the Brigham Young University Alumni Association Emeritus Club. MSS 6743
  8. "'Vasco M. Tanner Day'". The Daily Herald (Provo, UT). 30 July 1976. p. 20. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  9. Leech, Hugh (1970). "Vasco M. Tanner — A Lifetime With Beetles". The Great Basin Naturalist. 30 (4): 213–215. JSTOR 41711266.
  10. Wilkinson, Ernest; Arrington, Leonard, eds. (1976). Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years. 3. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press. p. 63. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  11. Kenneth, Duke (1970). "Vasco M. Tanner — An Inspiring Teacher". The Great Basin Naturalist. 30 (4): 209–210. JSTOR 41711266.
  12. "BYU Picks Eight Educators to Get Maeser Teaching, Research Awards". The Daily Herald. 28 April 1972. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  13. "Dr. Vasco Tanner Seeks State Legislature Post". The Daily Herald (Provo, Utah). 2 April 1964. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  14. Tanner, Vasco M. (23 February 1958). "Flood Control Project Preserves Resources". The Daily Herald (Provo, Utah). Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  15. "Provo Power Project Near Completion". The Daily Herald (Provo, Utah). 2 March 1969. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  16. "Dr. Vasco M. Tanner, Utilities Worker and Board Member, Civic Worker, Files". The Daily Herald (Provo, Utah). 30 September 1957. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  17. "19th Century Enjoys Talks by Candidates". The Daily Herald (Provo, Utah). Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  18. "Marriages". Washington County News. 7 June 1917. Retrieved 14 March 2016.
  19. Tanner, Annie Atkin (1970). ""I do" included a zoo". The Great Basin Naturalist. 30 (4): 190–194. JSTOR 41711266.
  20. "Provoan gives $2,000 for Memorial Fund". The Daily Herald. 2 December 1973. Retrieved 21 March 2016.
  21. "Dixie State honors the late Annie Atkin Tanner for literary contributions". St. George news. 21 July 2015. Retrieved 21 March 2016.
  22. "About The Quill". The Southern Quill. Dixie State University. Retrieved 21 March 2016.
  23. Tinkham, Ernest R. (1970). "A remarkable new genus and species of giant black sand treader camel cricket from the San Rafael Desert with key and notes". Great Basin Naturalist. 30: 242–249.
  24. Sorenson, E. B.; Stones, R. C. (1959). "Description of a new tenebrionid (Coleptera) from Glen Canyon, Utah". Great Basin Naturalist. 19: 63–66.
  25. Yves Bousquet (2012). Catalogue of Geadephaga (Coleoptera, Adephaga) of America, north of Mexico: Trachypachidae–Trechini. ZooKeys. 245. PenSoft Publishers LTD. pp. 1–1722. doi:10.3897/zookeys.245.3416. ISBN 978-954-642-658-1. PMC 3577090. PMID 23431087.
  26. O'Brien, C. W.; Marshall, G. B. (1979). "U.S. Bagous, bionomic notes, a new species, and a new name (Bagoini, Erirhininae, Curculionidae, Coleoptera)" (PDF). Southwestern Entomologist. 4 (2): 141–149.
  27. Bright, Donald E. (1994). "Revision of the Genus Sitona (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) of North America". Annals of the Entomological Society of America. 87 (3): 277–306. doi:10.1093/aesa/87.3.277.
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