The Foreign Service Journal, November 2005

reporter for six months in Pueblo, Colo., and then joined the army and was stationed in Germany. After three years of military service, he returned to the University of Colorado and earned a master’s degree in politics. In 1967, Mr. Strovas joined the Foreign Service as a USIA officer. His distinguished career was spent mostly in Africa: he was posted to Ghana, Mali, Togo, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire. He came to know the conti- nent very well, and had a particularly in-depth knowledge of South Africa, where he served in three diplomatic postings. There, Mr. Strovas enjoyed the opportunity his position at the embassy gave him to promote writers, artists and musicians and to arrange cultural and educational exchanges. During the apartheid era, American cultural centers were often the only place where black performers had a chance to play before mixed-race audiences, and many local musicians got a start there. Moreover, the homes of American diplomats such as Mr. Strovas were also the only places where English and Afrikaans journal- ists from opposing sides of the political spectrum mingled and debated with each other as well as with black news- papermen such as Percy Qoboza, then editor of The Sowetan . In 1977, Mr. Strovas married South African journalist Cynthia Edwards in Washington, D.C. She accompanied him on assignments to Ljubljana, Johannesburg, Bucharest and Riyadh; on a civilian posting as adviser to the Special Forces in Fort Bragg; and for a final assignment to Pretoria before his retirement in 1994. Mr. Strovas spoke French and Afrikaans, and he and his wife studied Slovene and Romanian together. Following retirement, attracted to the beautiful Cape Winelands area of South Africa, Mr. and Mrs. Strovas settled in Somerset West. They also bought a home on Amelia Island in Florida, with the idea of dividing their time between the two countries. In 2002, Mr. Strovas was diagnosed with cancer. Survivors include his wife Cynthia of Somerset West, South Africa, and sisters Valmarie Leonard of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Dottie Engberg of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. n N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 73 I N M E M O R Y u