Dr. Rodney F. Boyer, who retired from the Hope chemistry faculty in 2000 after 26 years at the college, died on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022. He was 79.
He was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Raymond and Alta Boyer (nee Spader). The family
lived in several small towns in Nebraska as his father, a United Methodist minister,
moved to different parishes.
He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry and mathematics at Westmar College in Iowa, and his Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry at Colorado State University. After three years as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow with M.J. Coon in the Department of Biological Chemistry at the University of Michigan Medical School, he joined the chemistry faculty at Grand Valley State University.
Boyer joined the Hope faculty in 1974. He was promoted to the rank of professor in 1985, and appointed the Drs. Edward and Elizabeth Hofma Professor of Chemistry in 1993. In addition to teaching, conducting research and writing biochemistry, he chaired the department for six years. He spent 1991 on a sabbatical leave as an American Cancer Society Scholar in the lab of Nobel Laureate Dr. Tom Cech at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
While at Hope, Boyer directed the work of more than 75 undergraduate students in research supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Dreyfus Foundation, Research Corporation, Petroleum Research Fund and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. With his students, he published numerous articles on iron metabolism in humans and biochemical education.
He relocated to Bozeman, Montana, after retiring from Hope. He continued to be active professionally, writing several biochemistry textbooks for the undergraduate level; serving as an associate editor for the journal Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education; and consulting in biochemistry education with the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Survivors include his wife, Christel; sister-in-law, Joyce Boyer; brother, Dan (Marci) Boyer; sister, LuAnn (Terry) Thacker; brother, Roger (Judy) Boyer; and their families.
Arrangements have been by Dokken-Nelson Funeral Service of Bozeman. A graveside service was held on Monday, March 7, at Sunset Hills Cemetery in Bozeman.