Robert Colegrove Meacham

Dr. Robert C. Meacham, a mathematics professor and founding faculty member of Eckerd College, died Tuesday Feb. 19, 2002 at the College Harbor Retirement Community. He was 81. He came to St. Petersburg in the summer of 1960 for the first classes that fall at Florida Presbyterian College, which became Eckerd College in 1972. During his 33 years at the college, Dr. Meacham served terms as president of the local chapter of the American Association of university Professors and as Florida governor of the American Mathematical Association. A talented tennis player, he coached the Eckerd team for several years during the 1970s. The son of a Presbyterian minister and a homemaker, Robert Colegrove Meacham was born in Moultrie, Ga., and grew up in Birmingham, Ala. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Southwestern at Memphis now Rhodes College. As a Navy lieutenant in World War II, he served as a radar, torpedo and gunnery officer aboard the submarine Picuda during six war patrols in the Pacific from 1944 to 1945. He received two Silver Star medals, a Bronze Star and letter of commendation. After the war, with a master of science degree and a doctorate in applied mathematics from Brown University, he taught at Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of Florida before coming to Florida Presbyterian. In 1966, he studied the emerging field of computer science in Palo Alto, Calif., under a National Science Foundation grant. He had served as an elder at Lakeview Presbyterian Church. Survivors include his wife of 57 years, Katharine Miller Meacham; two daughters, Katharine Meacham, Asheville, NC, and Laura Keane, St. Petersburg; a son, Andrew, St. Petersburg, a Times correspondent; a sister, Charlotte Parsons, Scituate, Mass.; and four grandchildren. A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Griffin Chapel on the Eckerd campus. The family suggests contributions to the Meacham Mathematics Memorial, established in the name of Dr. Meacham and a son, the late Robert C. Meacham, c/o Eckerd College, 4200 54th Ave. S., St. Petersburg, FL 33711; or to Lakeview Presbyterian Church, 1310 22nd Ave. S., St. Petersburg, FL 33705. Anderson-McQueen Funeral Homes & Cremation Tribute Center-Ninth Street Chapel is in charge of arrangements.