A $50,000 'thank you' from Earl Lillevig for getting a UI degree with his GED

Hearing about Jim and Beulah Martin's $700,000 endowment in last winter's Programs & People inspired Earl Lillevig '58 to add $50,000 to their endowment.

Along with his check came a hand-written five-page letter highlighting his life.

Lillevig, now 78 and living in a Portland, Oregon, retirement community, tells of his gratitude to UI agricultural engineering professors Jim Martin and Allen Janssen (both with UI buildings named after them) who ''opened doors for me to a successful future."”

Lillevig had completed only nine years of school when he joined the U.S. Maritime Service in 1945 and sailed for five years. He quit to get married, and within six months was drafted. One Sunday at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, he took the test for his high school GED (General Education Development)--and passed.

After the war, Lillevig credits Martin and Janssen with ''helping smooth my admission” to the UI. ''My proudest moment was in 1958 when I walked across the stage to get my diploma as an agricultural engineer," recalls Lillevig. ''I even had a couple tears in my eyes."” Summer jobs with Soil Conservation Service engineers were good hands-on training and opened the door to his own 34 years with the SCS, now the Natural Resource Conservation Service.

Traveling became part of his work life. In 1967 Earl promised to go to Vietnam for the SCS during the worst of the war years, only if he could relocate afterwards to Portland, Oregon. Both happened.

Over the years he and his wife Del ''had a lot of interesting travels--every state but Rhode Island and all the Canadian provinces, 37 countries in all, and seven trips through the Panama Canal. As far south as Antarctica and north to Point Barrow, Alaska.”  He worked and lived in a number of countries and lists his favorites as ''Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, South Vietnam, Thailand, and Egypt."” 

Lillevig ended his letter with an admonition to the UI: ''I hope you're still giving consideration to people with a GED.  It sure made a difference for me."