I'm in the process of unpacking from yet another move, this time from Urbana IL to Galveston TX. I'm finally parting with my protistology texts from my classes with Gene Small in the 70s at the U of Maryland, and was surprised to find that one of the reprints I held on to was when he was at the U of Illinois in Urbana. Truly a small world.  My story - our first day of Protozoology, Gene bounded into the room and announced "I'm Gene Small, I know I'm a Doctor so you don't have to remind me!"  I have used this line shamelessly with my own students :)  

I knew Gene from 1980-1987. I was a TA from him working on a experiential course we developed taking non-majors out on the Chesapeake on weekends where they sorted though trawls and dredges for oysters, crabs, fish and numerous inverts. I also was his TA for parasitology though he was sick from an India trip (amoebic dysentery) afterwards. Proto was not my field do it was quite interesting. In those early classes were John Heisler (EPA, deceased) John Dolan, Dick Snyder, and others).

Let’s face it Gene was a character and I hope that he was still full of life till the end.

Loren Coen, PhD

Dr Small was my professor during my time at under. Funny, very cool dude who, in my opinion, had no air of pomposity. His Chesapeake bay course was awesome and the boat outings trawling and dredging were the highlight of my time there. Thanks Gene!