Obituary of James Ralph Fouts

James Ralph Fouts, an Episcopal priest and research scientist who spent more than 40 years at the frontier of the development of toxicology and environmental health, died on April 15 at his home in Sylva, NC. He was 81. The son of a Disciples of Christ pastor, Fouts grew up in Denver, Colorado. After graduating from South Denver High School, where he was valedictorian, he received his bachelors degree with highest honors in chemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. He earned his doctorate in biochemistry and pharmacology at Northwestern and later worked at Burroughs Wellcome Research Laboratories in Tuckahoe, New York, under Nobel Laureate George Hitchings. In 1957, Fouts joined the faculty of the Department of Pharmacology in the College of Medicine at the University of Iowa, where he also served as director of the Oakdale Toxicology Center. Fouts moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1970, where he was named senior scientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at the Research Triangle Park. Throughout the 1970's he did summer research on cell biology and metabolism at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Salisbury Cove, ME, an area of the country he and his family grew to embrace and love. He became Scientific Director at NIEHS in 1976 and served there, lastly as Senior Scientific Advisor, until his retirement in 1985. A gentle yet staunch environmentalist, Fouts served on many intergovernmental panels, dealing with research on the human health effects of air and water pollution, pesticides, heavy metals, the public health impacts of "superfund" sites and garbage dumps, and early studies on global climate change. His work in part led to the creation of the International Global Climate Change Panels under the United Nations and the World Health Organization. As a recognized expert on global warming, he was one of several scientists, industry leaders, and policy makers from the United States and Russia to be invited to the 1989 Greenhouse Glasnost, hosted by actor Robert Redford in Sundance, Utah. He authored over 250 scientific publications, and was one of only 57 pharmacologists to be included in the list of the "1,000 Most Cited Contemporary Scientists 1965-78" compiled by Current Contents. His many honors and awards include the Marple-Schweitzer Memorial Award in Chemistry from Northwestern University, the Abel Award in Pharmacology from the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and the Claude Bernard Medal from the University of Montreal. His heart for loving people, seeing the good in all things, and his commitment for embracing both science and religion drove him to a second career as an Episcopal priest. He attended the School of Theology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee before receiving his Master of Divinity, summa cum laude, from Duke Divinity School in 1984. He was ordained a priest on June 27, 1986. He was a great friend to animals, especially to his beloved shetland sheepdog Courtney, and preached often with his dry humour of our responsibility to enjoy the world as both the stewards of God's creation and as creatures ourselves. He served Episcopal churches in Durham, Chapel Hill, and Franklin, NC before his second retirement in 2005. He was preceded in death by his father, The Rev. Ralph Fouts and his mother, Mary Lingenfelter Fouts; and a sister, Helen Pletz. He is survived by his wife of 46 years, Joan, of Sylva, NC; a sister, Dorothy Robinson, of Dothan, AL; a son, Jeff, and his wife, Jana, of Tucson, AZ; two daughters, Mary Corsair and her husband Dan, of Ballwin, MO, and Carolyn Blosil and her husband Randy, of Orem, UT; ten grandchildren, and one great-grandson. Family and friends are invited to the Whistle Stop Cafe in Dillsboro, NC on Tuesday April 19, 2011 at 9:00 am to remember Father Fouts. Services will be held at St. John's Episcopal Church in Sylva, NC on Tuesday, April 19, at a time to be announced. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made to St. John's Episcopal Church in Sylva, NC.