Until his death in 1978, at the age of ninety-two, "Alex" Wetmore never stopped thinking of himself as a "Kansas boy." He was born in Wisconsin, did his graduate work at George Washington University, and spent most of his life on the east coast, but he especially cherished his boyhood days in Kansas and his undergraduate tenure at the Museum of Natural History, where he worked under the watchful eye of C. D. Bunker. He graduated from KU in 1912.

His boyish enthusiasm for ornithol­ogy never disappeared. At any pro­fessional meeting he was always surrounded by younger workers.

Wetmore began his work in Wash­ington with the Bureau of Biological Survey and eventually became the chief administrative officer of the Smithsonian Institution, serving in that position from 1945 to 1952. His heavy administrative duties never kept him from studying birds. He was considered the "Dean of North American Ornithology," and was one of the leading workers in the world; his classification of birds has been a standard for decades. He published numerous faunal works covering North and Central America, including a monumental work on the birds of Panama. Wetmore's im­mense contribution to our knowledge of fossil birds would, in itself, qualify him for a high place in ornithology.

Wetmore received a Distinguished Service Citation as a KU alumnus in 1941, the first year that award was given.

Alex Wetmore's picture hangs in the Bird Division laboratory where specimens are processed and where students do some of their most tedious work--which is where Alex would have been.