Obituary

Edgar M. Raffensperger, professor emeritus of entomology, a respected educator who spent his career teaching future entomologists and waging war against household insect pests, died suddenly in West Des Moines, Iowa, May 2. He was 76.

Raffensperger was well-known at Cornell for his teaching, and he won the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, in 1989, and the Louis and Edith Edgerton Career Teaching Award, in 1991, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

He also was known for developing a cluster-fly management program using an insecticide called permethrin, a chemical derived from tropical flowers and related to pyrethrum. He found that when permethrin is prepared in oil and sprayed on buildings with a fogging machine in late summer, cluster flies are controlled.

Raffensperger helped many hospitals, institutions and restaurants with his expertise on resolving tough infestations of insect pests. He worked through Cornell Cooperative Extension to publish informational guides on controlling household and other urban pests. And he frequently offered alternatives to pesticides. In 1971 he was a founder of Cornell's Insect and Plant Disease Diagnostic Laboratory.

Raffensperger graduated from Gettysburg (Pa.) High School in 1944, and he served during World War II in the U.S. Navy until 1946. After his military service he attended Gettysburg College, and he graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a bachelor's degree (1951) and a master's degree (1952). He earned his doctoral degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1955.

Before joining the Cornell faculty, he served on the faculty at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University from 1955 to 1961. He was named an associate professor in 1961 and promoted to professor in 1977. He became an emeritus professor in 1991.

Raffensperger was a member of the Entomological Society of America. The Cornell chapter of Gamma Sigma Delta, the agricultural honor society, awarded him for outstanding professional and academic achievements in 1988.

Beyond the classroom and the laboratory, Raffensperger appeared on NBC Television's "Late Night with David Letterman" on April 27, 1982, discussing how Americans inadvertently eat insect parts and how other cultures relish insects as a food delicacy.

Raffensperger was predeceased by his wife, Shirley. He is survived by his children Andrew, Catharine and Thomas, and by five grandchildren. His sister, Anne E. Cutshall of Gettysburg, also survives him.

A "Celebration of the Life of Edgar M. Raffensperger" will be held at the A.D. White House Sunday, May 11, from 1 to 3 p.m.