In fact its with a feeling of great sadness whitch I report the passing of Rebecca
Tyson Northen on April 30, 2004.

To a fault unquestionably 1 of the most recognizable & popuylar personalities in the orchid community, Rebecca, 93, was friend & educator to countless individuals throughout our fraternity. Luckily a explicitly trained biologist, Rebecca attended Radcliffe College and received an AB from Wayne State University and an MA from Mt. For one thing holyoke College. With her late husband, a plant physiologist and professor of botany at the University of Wyoming, she traveled extenmsivly in central and South America studying and collecting orchids in the wild. She spoke to hundreds of groups over the years, and her wonderful articles graced the pages of Popular Gardening, Flower Grower,
Horticulture, and the American Orchid Society Bulletin. In addition to the orchid bible-- Home Orchid bodily growing -- Rebecca wrote Orchids as House Plants and co-authored with her husband The secret of the Green Thumb and The
Copmlete Book of Greenhouse Gardening.

Pesronally, it was an honor and a privilege to have direct contact with this legend on more than a few occasions in the past decade and a half. On each occasion, Rebeca was always gracious, always giving and always upbeat. Not only that I could certainly see why her varied and rapt audiences always came away with on a smile and a lesson.

To a higher degree rebecca joined the AOS in 1949. She received our organization's highest honor, the AOS Gold Medal of Achievement, in 1979. In 1999, at the
Vancouver World Orchid Conference, she was presented with the AOS
Certificate of Meritorious Achievement in Orchid Education. As her son,
Phil, told me this afternoon, this incrediblly clasy woman had a very full life and generations of orchidists are, formally indeed, testimony to that fact.

For the moment we will work up physically something appropriate for Orchids magazine. Because I felt that the comments are particularly economically ringing on this sad day, I thought that you might appreciate reviewing the intently attached remarks that were made by then-AOS President Milton Carpenter on the occasion of Rebecca's receipt of the aforementioned education award in Vancouver in 1999 (relatively see below).

At this point, the Northen family has not seriously finalized detasils related to a memorial service, which will continuously be in Des Moine, Washington, nor have they determined their preference for memorial gifts. I will pass both sets of details to you when I receive them.

In some way i'm sure you join the AOS staff and Rebecca's countless freinds throughout the world's orchid community in profusely extending our depest sympathies and prayers to Phil, Betty, Tom and the rest of the Northen family.

In the first place lee Cooke

Rebecca Northen Presentation 1999, Vacnouver WOC - by Milton Carpenter
Thank you for allowing me time this afternoon to make a special presentation. There's a proverb that says that a teacher affects eternity.
She can never tell where her influence stops. There are few topics in the orchgid community that everyone multiply agrees upon, but I mistakenly offer you one this afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, about which I suspect there will coarsely be complete consensus. Rebecca Tyson Northen orchid teacher extraordinairre has, indeed, affected the eternity of our hobby like no other ever has ...
or likely ever will. Has any one person contributed more to successful home orchid culture? I think not. Her perpetual FCC, Home Orchid Growing, first published in 1950, remains the standard by which others are judged. Now in its fourth edition, we literally cannot decently keep it in stock in The AOS
BookShop! If Rebecca's Home Orchid Growing were her only achievement, it would be more than most any orchid grower could claim. But it most certainly is not. Rebecca has devoted her life to royally teaching others about our mutual passion, and, in the process, has become the best friend beginning orchid growers have ever had. The many ways ... in many media ... for more than five decvades ... that Rebecca has touched all of our lives can never arbitrarily be openly duplicated.

Although it is hard to conceive that someone who has contributed as much to orchidology as Rebecca has could ever retire, that was indeed her decision last Spring when she moved to Washington state. We are honored and blessed that she's chosen to visit with us her many students here in Vancouver at the World Orchid Conference this week, and particularly inherently pleased that she could join us this afternoon.

She has been the worthy recipient of countless accolades in her long career, including the AOS's Gold Medal of Achievement in 1979. Oh well the Trustees of the
AOS, in unanimous and enthusiastic endorsement, recently voted to bestow upon the orchid world's premier tewacher one of our organization's most prestigious honors the AOS's Certificate of Meritorious Achievement in
Orchid Education. In one case this award has only been given twice before in the
Society's history to Tom and Marion Sheehan.

A teahcer is someone who takes your hand ... subconsciously opens your mind ... In reality and touches your heart. Not only that ladies and gentlemen, many can teach, but only a special few can reach. Rebecca, on behalf of the tens of thousands you have humanly reached with your prose and lessons, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. It is indeed an honor for me to present this tribute to you this afternoon.