Abstract
The recipient of the AAVLD Distinguished Service Award for 2011 is Dr. Clyde A. Kirkbride. Even though his health was fragile, the Awards Committee was hopeful that Dr. Kirkbride would be able to travel to Buffalo, New York, to receive the award in person. Unfortunately, we are sad to say that he passed away on September 15, 2011, of an undiagnosed neurologic disorder that had rapid onset.
I (Gary Anderson) am particularly pleased to present this award because I have had the privilege of knowing Dr. Kirkbride for many years, as he was in Brookings, South Dakota, when I was just getting my start in diagnostic medicine as an undergraduate working in the South Dakota State University (SDSU) Animal Disease Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (ADRDL). In addition, my MS degree was earned from collaborative efforts between Drs. Kirkbride and Horst Leipold while I was at Kansas State University.
Dr. Kirkbride was a veterinary researcher and diagnostician who served the AAVLD and the discipline of veterinary diagnostic medicine for approximately 3 decades. He did so with distinction, humility, and excellence. His public service record goes back to World War II, where he served as a bomber pilot, flying missions over Europe. He received his DVM from Oklahoma State University in 1953 and was in private practice for 10 years, followed by faculty appointments at Kansas State University and then SDSU, where he served 22 years as both a faculty member and a diagnostician until his retirement. He rapidly became the national authority on the diagnostic investigation of the causes of food animal abortion. In cooperation with AAVLD, he published Laboratory Diagnosis of Bovine Abortion in 1974, which morphed into a second AAVLD publication in 1984, Laboratory Diagnosis of Abortion in Food Animals, and then a third in 1990, Laboratory Diagnosis of Livestock Abortion. All 3 books were a huge success, drawing on AAVLD diagnostic experts and collaborators from across the country. The books are still found at the diagnostic benches of veterinary diagnostic labs around the world, and a revised version is due to be released in February 2012. Dr. Kirkbride also wrote numerous publications and reviews on the subject of reproductive failure in livestock and conducted research projects that clarified many disease syndromes. In 1985, he described a new infectious agent causing abortion in sheep, the spirillum Flexispira. In 1989, he received the SDSU Gamma Sigma Delta Award for excellence in research. He taught a course entitled “Animal Diseases and Control” to undergraduate students at SDSU for 20 years and was awarded Teacher of the Year in 1982.
He retired from SDSU in 1989 and was professor emeritus until his death. After retirement, he continued to write, and he published a series of articles in the Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation that summarized his diagnostic findings while a veterinary diagnostician at the ADRDL, a series that continues to be referenced by researchers working in the field of livestock reproductive loss.
Dr. Kirkbride was living in South Dakota with his wife, Dee, until his death. Dr. David Zeman, director of the ADRDL, will accept the award and deliver it to Mrs. Kirkbride.