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Walter Wardlaw Armentrout, 1894-1964: A Tribute
 The picture to the left was taken in 1961 when Dr. Armentrout received the National Gamma Sigma Delta Award for Distinguished Service to Agriculture.
Dr. Walter Wardlaw Armentrout helped shape the direction of agricultural economic research in West Virginia for many years. He was born in 1894 in Washington College, Tennessee, where he attended the Washington College Prep School and then went on to study at the University of Tennessee, where he earned the BA in Agriculture in 1916. Upon graduation he taught vocational agriculture in Bradley County, Tennessee. Dr. Armentrout was a veteran of W.W.I, having served in France and Germany in the Medical Corps from April 1918 until September 1919. From 1920 until 1922 he was field and legislative agent of the National Child Labor Committee in New York. In 1922 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Rural Education at the University of Tennessee. He stayed in that position until 1924, when he moved to West Virginia University as an Instructor in Farm Economics. While on the faculty, he continued his education and earned the MS in Agricultural Economics in 1925. He completed his graduate studies at the University of Minnesota with the Ph.D. in 1931. At WVU he steadily advanced in rank and in 1936 was appointed professor and chairman of the Department of Farm Economics, the forerunner of today's Program in Agricultural and Resource Economics. He remained chairman of the department (which changed its name twice during his tenure as chair) until 1960, with the exception of the period 1943 to 1945, when he was on leave from WVU to serve as Director of Rent Control in Morgantown (1943) and as a member of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in London (1944 and 1945).
In the 1930s, Dr. Armentrout conducted research on farmer cooperatives, particularly ways to increase their competitiveness through greater efficiency. He was the project leader of a very large project that started in 1939 that had as its major focus the study and proper recording of the ownership of every parcel of land in the state. Nesius (1988) reports that at one time 145 clerks were working on this project, making this the largest research undertaking of the West Virginia Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station up to that time.
Dr. Armentrout, affectionately called Armey by his friends, was active in community affairs and on campus. As a member of the Faculty Senate he paid particular attention to faculty welfare issues. It was during his service that WVU brought the faculty from the state retirement system into Social Security and the retirement plan provided by TIAA-CREF.
Dr. Armentrout was married to Dorothy Gasch Armentrout. They had two children, a son and a daughter. Dr. Armentrout died in Morgantown in 1964. His wife died in 1967 in a car accident.
Donations to the Armentrout Scholarship Endowment came from friends, colleagues, and former students from all across the United States. They are testimony to the value of Dr. Armentrout's contribution and the high esteem in which he was held.
Reference
Ernest J. Nesius, 1988. The First 100 Years: A History of the West Virginia Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University, The Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station.
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