Nora Kreher McManus Plant Biology Award

Nora Kreher McManus earned her BS and MS degrees in the Department of Botany in 1949 and 1950 at Southern Illinois University and was only the second student to earn a graduate degree in the department. Raised during the Great Depression on a small farm in rural southern Illinois without electricity or indoor plumbing, Nora saw education as her route to escape poverty. The youngest of eight children, she was the only one to earn a college degree. A born naturalist, Nora was drawn to the study of plants.

While a botany graduate student at SIU she met Charles McManus, a World War II veteran who was pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in history. The two married, and over the next 14 years they had five children and lived in five states, eventually settling in Wisconsin. Through the years Nora taught in public and Catholic schools, and was often called on to teach biology and chemistry. As a Girl Scout leader and camp counselor, she led nature walks and shared her deep knowledge of and contagious enthusiasm for flora, fauna, and fungi. During the summer Nora’s award-winning flower gardens exploded into a riot of color, and in the winter, the McManus yard was a sanctuary for birds, squirrels, and a range of creatures that emptied the feeders as quickly as they could be filled.

Patricia McManus is the youngest child of Nora and Charles McManus. As kids, Patricia and her siblings enjoyed hiking in the woods with their mother who endlessly rattled off Latin binomials that made no sense to the youngsters but that sounded funny enough to be memorable (e.g., Catalpa bignonioides). These experiences instilled in Patricia an appreciation for nature, biology, and especially plants. She earned BS, MS, and PhD degrees in botany and plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan State University.

In 1995 she joined the faculty in the Department of Plant Pathology at UW-Madison where she rose through the ranks and became department chair in 2014. Professor McManus and her husband, Murray Clayton, a professor in the Department of Statistics at UW-Madison, are establishing the Nora Kreher McManus Plant Biology Endowed Fund in recognition of the lasting, positive impact that Nora has had on her children and many students and to provide opportunities for women following in her footsteps at SIU.

• Scholarship for a graduate student in plant biology.
• Recipient must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0.