The Foreign Service Journal, May 2017

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2017 63 same opportunity he had enjoyed with others. In the mid-1950s Mr. Ross and his family moved to California, where he taught in the Fresno Unified School Dis- trict. He also taught English as a second language in evening classes. He worked construction during the summer, joking that his summer job allowed him to afford to teach the rest of the year. In 1964, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Belgium. After returning from Europe, Mr. Ross joined the U.S. Foreign Service. He served overseas in Algeria, Dahomey (now Benin), Camer- oon, Côte d’Ivoire and Pakistan, along with assignments in Washington, D.C. In addition to responsibilities as cultural affairs officer and public affairs officer, he taught as a guest instructor in host-country universities. His unassum- ing and genuine interest in and affection for others resulted in lifelong friendships with many people worldwide. Mr. Ross retired from the Foreign Ser- vice in 1989, after service on the Foreign Service Grievance Board. The Rosses moved to Shepherdstown, W. Va., in 1977. There they volunteered with Meals on Wheels, the Shepherd- stown Community Club, Friends of Music, the Millbrook Orchestra and the White House. Mr. Ross was named the National Conservation Training Center’s Volunteer of the Year in 2008. Active long into retirement, Mr. Ross loved his 10 acres and his vegetable gar- den. In 1997, at age 73, he rode a bicycle along 1,000 km of the Loire River in France and was featured in French media as “the old man from America.” His biking tours included the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, New England and Canada, as well as the countryside surrounding Shepherdstown. The Rosses enjoyed numerous Elderhostel adven- tures, as well as intergenerational trips with his older grandson. Sherman Ross was preceded in death by his son, Glenn “Stephen” Stephenson Ross, and siblings Otis Ross and Betty Faye Lane. He is survived by his wife of 70 years, Elinor; two daughters, Maylene (and her husband, R. Luther Reisbig) and Laurie (and her husband, Charles F. Wieland); grandchildren Katharine and Kerrick Reisbig, and Eleanor, Duncan and Lil- lian Wieland; four sisters, Flora Russell of West Virginia, Fanny Ruth Blum and Mona Sue Thornburg of California, and Sally Mae Taylor of Arizona; and many nieces and nephews. Contributions in his memory may be made to Hospice of the Panhandle, 330 Hospice Lane, Kearneysville WV 25430 or to SAIL (Shepherdstown Area Indepen- dent Living), PO Box 209, Shepherdstown WV 25443. n McKinney Hearn Russell, 86, a retired Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Information Agency, died on Feb. 17, 2016, at The Meadow Green Home in Waltham, Mass., surrounded by his family. The eldest of four, Mr. Russell was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. The son of a linotype setter for the Brooklyn Eagle , he was the first in his family to attend university, graduating from Yale with a degree in Russian studies in 1950. Mr. Russell’s lifelong affinity for music began in childhood as a church choris- ter. At Yale, he sang in the Glee Club. He discovered an avid enthusiasm for opera, attending the Wagner Ring Cycle perfor- mances at Bayreuth. After university, Mr. Russell served in the U.S. Army in Germany. While in Munich, he met and married Lydie Boccara, with whom he shared his life, his passion for opera and all his Foreign Service tours of duty until her untimely death in 1998. During the 1950s in Munich, Mr. Russell worked as a translator, reporter, editor and newsroommanager at Radio Liberty, broadcasting behind the Iron Curtain. As a special events correspon- dent, he accompanied Nikita Khrushchev on his 1959 visit to the United States, and then was assigned to manage the Voice of America’s European and USSR broad- casts. In his first tour as a U.S. Foreign Ser- vice officer, Mr. Russell served as cultural affairs officer in Kinshasa, accompanied by his wife and their first two children, from 1962 to 1965. He was then assigned to Moscow (1969-1971), where son Kyle was added to the family. Mr. Russell subsequently served in Bonn (1971-1975), Rio de Janeiro (1978- 1982), and both Madrid and Beijing dur- ing the 1980s. In Beijing, he achieved the rank of Minister Counselor and worked to reestablish better relations following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. In his final overseas post—as coun- selor of the U.S. Information Agency, that organization’s senior career position— Mr. Russell set up the first American cultural centers in the newly indepen- dent (former Soviet) states during the early 1990s. Throughout his diplomatic career, he not only mastered many languages, but developed a deep cultural understanding of the countries where he served. In 1993 Mr. Russell served as diplomat in residence at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. On retiring from the Foreign Service in 1994, Mr. Russell and his wife settled in Washington, D.C. He then joined the International Research and Exchanges Commission