Photo by Tom Campbell

Former Deans of Agriculture Vic Lechtenberg (left) and Bob Thompson accompany Earl Butz at the 2005 Ag Alumni Fish Fry. Butz died Feb. 1 in Washington, D.C.

Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and Purdue Agriculture Dean Earl Butz died in his sleep Feb. 1 in Washington, D.C. He was 98.

“Butz served Purdue well as a respected faculty member, department head and dean,” said Randy Woodson, Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture. “He was a tireless advocate for agriculture, and his efforts helped bring Purdue Agriculture into international prominence.”

“I think, with little exaggeration, that Earl Butz was the most popular secretary of agriculture with American farmers,” said former Dean of Agriculture Bob Thompson.

Butz was part of the College of Agriculture since enrolling as a freshman in 1927. He maintained an office in the Krannert Building and reported each day for work well into his ninth decade. He earned a bachelor of science degree in agriculture in 1932 and earned Purdue’s first doctoral degree in agricultural economics in 1937.

In 1999, Butz donated $1 million to Purdue’s Department of Agricultural Economics, which was headed by Wally Tyner.

“When I became department head, I didn’t really know Earl that well,” Tyner recalled in a 2004 interview.

“I was pleased and surprised when a number of times he offered to take me to important meetings around the state and introduce me to key leaders. He was always helpful and supportive, without being intrusive.”

And he was a great benefactor to the department, too.

“One day Earl asked me to come down to his office. I had no idea why, and when I sat down, he told me he wanted to give the department $1 million. I nearly fell out of the chair.”

Butz joined the ag economics faculty in 1937. He served as head of the department from 1946 to 1954. Butz became dean of Purdue Agriculture in 1957, serving until 1967. He was dean of continuing education and vice president of the Purdue Research Foundation from 1968 to 1971. In his governmental posts, Butz was assistant secretary of agriculture from 1954 to 1957, under President Dwight Eisenhower. He was secretary of agriculture from 1971 to 1976, under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

He left the United States Department of Agriculture in 1976 after intense criticism for an insensitive joke he told reporters.

A native of Albion, Ind., Butz married Mary Emma Powell, from North Carolina, in 1937. They met in 1930 at the National 4-H Camp in Washington, D.C. She died in 1995.