Corner stone of the Zamorano formation
Frederick Wilson Popenoe was born in Topeka, Kansas on March 9, 1892, into a family of successful entrepreneurs. He was a botanist, agronomist and teacher who carried out the majority of his scientific activities in Latin America and the Caribbean, including Honduras. Beginning in 1913 he explored the flora of Central and South America as a researcher for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The United Fruit Company hired him as a general agronomist in 1925, and part of his work involved founding Lancetilla Valley Experimental Station where he collected exotic plants and trees from throughout the tropical world. The Station began with the objective of studying endemic diseases affecting banana plantations and at present is a protected area that promotes environmental protection.
Years later, Samuel Zemurray, the United Fruit Company CEO and his daughter, Doris Z. Stone, came up with the idea of establishing an agricultural school and decided that Popenoe had all the qualities to lead the new institution. This unique scientist with his non-academic, practical background was perfectly suited to design an educational model that combined theory with practice that Zemurray envisioned for the agricultural school and was named the first director of the Panamerican Agricultural School, Zamorano.
Dr. Popenoe was well known in the region as a result of 30 years of experience gained during extended missions as an agricultural explorer in the tropics of the Americas. He had carried out studies in different areas of botany: pharmaceutical, agricultural, ornamental and forest-related and had conducted research projects in fruit cultivation in the Americas, Asia and Europe.
Dr. Popenoe married three times and fathered five children with his first wife, Dorothy K. Hughes: Peter, Nancy, Sally, Marion and Hugh. Hugh Popenoe was Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Trustee Emeritus of Zamorano.
Dr. Popenoe received three honorary doctorates from the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, Peru, from Pomona College, now California Polytechnic University, in Pomona, California and from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.
During his lifetime he won 22 awards, including the Rank of Commander in the “Order of Francisco Morazan” conferred by the Honduran government at the same time as Doris Z. Stone received the same award.
His accomplishments also include 72 publications, including manuals, books and newsletters, including three books published in Spanish on avocado growing, fruit culture in Central America and a manual of tropical and subtropical fruits: El Aguacate: su cultivo y distribución, Fruticultura centroamericana y Manual de frutas tropicales y subtropicales.
“Wilson Popenoe, in addition to being first director, was an educator always obsessed by constant, arduous and disciplined work,” said Dr. Abraham Arce (Class of ’46), graduate of the first Zamorano class.
Dr. Popenoe died at the age of 83 in the City of Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala where he is buried. His life and history are closely intertwined with Zamorano. His inventive, energetic and entrepreneurial spirit gave him the tools to implement the philosophy of Learning by Doing, which still remains a mainstay of the process of forming of young American leaders at Zamorano.
The beginning of Learning by Doing and Labor Omnia Vincit
Popenoe was the institution’s first director, a post he held from 1942 to 1957 when he developed and strengthened the model of integral formation that makes Zamorano unique.
The creativity and ingenuity of the Samuel Zemurray, Wilson Popenoe, and Doris Stone team led to their humanitarian vision and helped them determine the requirements for the fundamental structure of the Panamerican Agricultural School.
In early 1943, as Director and also professor, Dr. Popenoe received the first group of 72 students. These would be the first students to implement and validate his novel educational model. The curriculum designed by Dr. Popenoe and his colleagues combined theoretical and practical studies during a period of three years that combined academic studies with intensive field work. Today Zamorano’s curriculum consists of four four-year careers with the same rigorous combination of theory and practice.
The theoretical and practical agricultural education was grounded in the proverb “Labor Omnia Vincit” (Work conquers all), but Popenoe envisioned an even broader formation. For him discipline was an absolutely essential condition to be practiced in all activities – on or off campus – and punctuality and respect became enduring aspects of the Zamorano ethos.
Dr. Popenoe was enthusiastic about converting poor young people into successful leaders imbued with the values of arduous work, ethical behavior, self-confidence, leadership, strength and the will to excel.
The author Frederic Rosengarten Jr., author of the biography of Wilson Popenoe, defined him as, “a great agricultural explorer, but above all a friend of Latin America.”
Some data in this brief historical overview of Dr. Popenoe was taken from the book “Zamorano: Meeting the challenge of Tropical America,” written by Dr. Simon Malo, an Ecuadorian Zamorano graduate of the Class of ’54, who was Popenoe’s student and the seventh Director of our beloved Alma Máter.
Today on March 9, 2012, the 6,704 graduates, 1,249 students and Zamorano’s employees recognize Wilson Popenoe’s legacy as a visionary educator and tireless seeker of excellence through hard work and discipline and we render him the honor he deserves.
