The Bonnie Hall Student Activity Endowment Fund is named in 2004 in honor and memory of Bonnie Hall's contributions to the department. This fund was originally established in 1993 after the sale of Bonnie's artwork to benefit student group trips.

Bonnie Hall's artwork has been a mainstay of our department since the early 1990's when she undertook her first prints of the native flowers of Witham Hill.  Along the way, she designed the department logo that adorns our website, appears on the green and white ceramic cup sold by the undergraduates, and appeared on a T-shirt sold by the graduate students.  The graduate students also used several of her floral prints for T-shirt designs.  Many of the floral prints have appeared in "Posies and Pathogens".  Over the years, Bonnie contributed many boxes of notecards and matted prints to be sold by the department as a fundraiser for our group travel fund.  As a result, we have an endowment fund that grew primarily from the sale of her artwork and which supports group activities for undergraduate and graduate students.  Past expenditures have included the fall graduate student trip to the coast (to welcome new graduate students), undergraduate field trips, pizza parties that brought the graduates and undergraduates together to talk about graduate school, and similar activities.  

(from Corvallis Gazette-Times, Feb24, 2004)
  Bonnie B. Hall of Corvallis died Wednesday Feb. 18, at her home of pancreatic cancer. She was 72.  
  She was born in Portland to Edwin and Alice Tracy Birkemeier. She graduated from Milwaukie High School, and received a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Oregon and a master's degree from the University of California at Berkeley.  
  She married James Hall on Sept. 25, 1955 in Milwaukie.  They lived in San Diego, Ann Arbor Mich., and Seattle until moving to Corvallis in 1963.  For 30 years, she worked as a scientific illustrator in the Department of Entomology at Oregon State University.  After retiring in 1993, she began a new career as a screen print artist, portraying the native wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest.  She showed her prints at art fairs throughout the Northwest.  
  She was active with the Corvallis Art Guild and was a member of the Board of the Corvallis Arts Center and Corvallis Fall Festival.  She was also a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and belonged to the Native Plant Society of Oregon and the American Society of Botanical Artists.  She was a member of the First Congregational Church, Corvallis.  
  She was active in civic affairs.  An early advocate for community recycling, she served on the Corvallis Community Goals Steering Committee in the 1970's, work that led to the city's first comprehensive plan.  She recently received the Patron of the Arts Award at the Celebrate Corvallis event in January.  
  Survivors include her husband; daughters Carolyn Schneider of Freeland, Wash., and Kate Hall of Iowa City, Iowa; and grandchildren Hunter, David and Joanne.

The Endowment

The endowment will be used to support group activities for undergraduate and graduate students.