Paul L. Estes ’67 MAT

Paul L. Estes ’67 MAT, of Plymouth, N.H.; Apr. 23. After graduating from Bowdoin College he worked for a year at General Electric in N.Y. He then served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps from 1960 to 1964 and met his wife while stationed in Germany. He was discharged and began graduate work at Brown. After Brown, he taught high school mathematics in North Attleboro, Mass. He later matriculated from the University of New Hampshire with a PhD and began teaching at Plymouth State University (PSU) until his retirement in 2006 with the title of emeritus professor. He was active in the medieval forum and published papers and gave presentations on the role of Arabic philosophers in medieval mathematics history, on mathematics education, and on writing across the curriculum. He spent sabbaticals in Munich and Hamburg, Germany, studying comparative methods of mathematics education and advocating for the adoption of both the metric system and more holistic mathematics pedagogies to help reduce math anxiety and increase mathematics literacy among students in the United States. He and his wife, who taught German at PSU, endowed three scholarships at the university for the study of German and mathematics. He was an athlete and hiked all of New England’s four-thousand-footers, several of Colorado’s “fourteeners,” and the John Muir Trail in California. He canoed the Allagash (Maine) and Buffalo (Arkansas) rivers, rafted the Grand Canyon,  played on local basketball and hockey teams, ran road races, skied and snowshoed, and excelled in a regional racquetball league. He is survived by his wife, Gisela; a daughter; a son; a grandson, a brother and sister-in-law; three half-sisters; and nieces and nephews.