Louis Earl Richter, M.A., Zeta

 

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1918, Louis E. Richter obtained his B.A. in romance languages from the University of Minnesota in 1940, where he was a member of Lambda Alpha Psi. Richter did advanced language study-research in Guatemala at the Universidad de San Carlos Borromeo. In 1941-42, he was on the staff of the superintendent of schools in Pendleton and served as the director of the Spanish instruction program at the Pendleton Air Base (Oceanside, California). From 1942-45 Richter served in the military signal corps. After the war, he served as an Instructor in the Dept. of Modern Languages at University of Oregon for three years where is also obtained his M.A. in 1947. His thesis was titled The Influence of Lamartine on the Lyric Poetry of Gomez de Avellaneda. He then taught French and Spanish for five years in the Department of Modern Languages at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon before joining the Modern Foreign Languages Department at Oregon State University in 1953. Richter served as department chair and taught French and Spanish. Richter was honored by the French government and ministry of education for leadership in language training and international cooperation. He also served as the Northwest Pacific chapter president of the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF), and on the editorial board of the Oregon Foreign Language Teachers bulletin. He was awarded the French Knight's Cross in the Order of the Academic Palms in 1957 for his work with the armed forces in storing and cataloguing European Paintings. Besides his service to Pi Delta Phi, Richter was also the faculty advisor for Sigma Delta Pi, the National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society, at OSU and was a special invited guest at the Sigma Delta Phi 1959 triennial convention in Chicago, held in conjunction with the annual meetings of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) and the Modern Language Association (MLA). The Louis Earl Richter scholarship was formerly awarded by Pi Delta Phi. Mr. Richter passed away on March 13, 1976 at the age of 57.

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"Richter", Corvallis Gazette-Times. (Corvallis, Oregon) 16 March, 1976, p. 8.