Former friends and colleagues in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Ohio University were saddened to learn of the death of Charles A. Randall on January 29, 2006 . Randall was a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow and Past President of the Ohio Academy of Science. "Charley" Randall was born on September 12, 1915 in Daytona Beach , Florida . He began his undergraduate studies at Doane College in Nebraska then transferred to Kalamazoo College in Michigan where he received an A.B. in 1936. He earned an M.A. from Cornell in 1939. After teaching in various special programs and working for various defense companies during the war, Charley entered the graduate program in physics at the University of Michigan in 1946 and received his Ph.D. in 1950 investigating cosmic rays.
Charley joined the physics faculty at Ohio University in 1950 as an Assistant Professor. There he continued his cosmic ray research with a number of Master's degree students. In 1953 he was promoted to Associate Professor and in 1956 to Professor. Also, in 1956 he was selected as Chair of the Department, a position he held until 1968. During his tenure, the faculty numbers grew from 6 to over 20, and under his leadership the Ohio Board of Regents approved the doctoral program in physics at Ohio University in 1959. In addition, Charley was instrumental in building the nuclear physics program at Ohio University into a nationally recognized program and assisted in obtaining the 11 MeV van de Graaff grant from the then Atomic Energy Commission and in the Department of Physics receiving a Research Development Grant from the NSF. As departmental Chair, Randall laid the groundwork for the development of the current outstanding Department of Physics and Astronomy at Ohio University and members of the department are grateful. He hired many outstanding faculty during his tenure and helped design the new science research building, Clippinger Laboratories. Despite his heavy administrative load, Charley maintained an active research career is cosmic ray physics and was an excellent teacher. In 1969 he was chosen to edit Extra-Terrestrial Matter, the proceeding of a conference held at Argonne National Laboratory.
Professor Randall retired from Ohio University in 1976 and returned to Florida to be near his extended family. He maintained an active interest in science and science education for the remainder of his life.
