My great uncle Don was big in Geology.... He taught me how to play chess when I was 5 years old...
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Bloss would graduate from the University of Chicago with bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, respectively, in 1947, 1949, and 1951. He served as a professor of geology at the University of Tennessee from 1951 to 1957 and at Southern Illinois University from 1957 to 1967, before coming to Blacksburg.
His textbooks on optical crystallography, crystallography, and crystal chemistry, the first published in 1961, were used worldwide, and have since been acknowledged by fellow geologists as ‘classics,’ according to his
obituary. Among his many awards are honors from the State Microscopical Societies of Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, and an Ernst Abbe Memorial Award from the New York Microscopical Society in 1988. The University of New Mexico selected Bloss as the State of New Mexico’s first endowed visiting chair, the Caswell Silver Distinguished Visiting Professor of Geology from 1981 to 1982. In addition,
the mineral blossite was named in his honor.
Bloss also wrote a number of nonscientific books, most notably five books on his lifelong hobby, chess.
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In memoriam: Don Bloss, first professor to be honored as Alumni Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech
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