Kenneth Tucker

Aug. 8, 1924 - Oct. 17, 2014

Retired entomologist, died at the age of 90 at Serenity Hospice House. Born to John and Jessie Tucker in Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, Ken grew up enjoying the beach and adjacent mountain sides accessible on foot or by bicycle with his seven brothers and sisters. He attended Lincoln grade school and Santa Barbara High School. A school teacher in Santa Barbara got Ken interested in keeping honeybees when he was a boy, an interest that he continued through his teen-age years on Fellowship Road. During World War II he enlisted in the navy and served as a radioman on an LST ship for two years in the south Pacific. On returning, he enrolled at the Riviera campus of Santa Barbara College for a term, then transferred to the University of California at Berkeley, where his brother John was a graduate student in Botany. Ken transferred to the UC-Davis campus as a graduate student in the Honeybee laboratory, and graduated with a Ph. D. in entomology. While at Davis he met Shirley Cotter, a botany graduate student; they were married in 1953. After obtaining his Ph.D., Ken worked as an extension entomologist at the University of Minnesota, taught biology at Lake Forest College in Illinois, and then worked for many years as an apicultural scientist at the federal Honey Bee Laboratory in Baton Rouge, LA. Ken worked on Africanized bees in Venezuela and other South American countries before they advanced to the U. S. His wife Shirley was a professor of Botany at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. They enjoyed travel to many parts of the world. They both retired in 1995, and moved to Santa Barbara. They have been ardent advocates for the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, and have endowed a staff position for a plant systematist there. Ken enjoyed the many venues in Santa Barbara for classical music, the Humanists Society meetings, the Farmers' Market, as well as hiking, fishing and kayaking. Ken will be greatly missed by his wife Shirley of 60 years, his brother Stanley (Marion), sister Mary Kraft, niece Linda Tucker, and many other nieces and nephews. The family thanks the staff of Serenity Hospice House for their excellent care and help. Memorials can be made to either the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden or Serenity Hospice House. Arrangements are by Welch-Ryce-Haider. No immediate service; a celebration of his life will be held at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden in mid-November.