Deceased February 17, 2019
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In Memory
Charles T. Plough Jr., died on Feb. 17, 2019, in Albuquerque, N.M., after a long battle with prostate cancer. He was 92 years old. His father was in the class of 1924.
Charlie was born in Oakland, Calif., and grew up in Stockton. He graduated from Berkeley High School and then served in the U.S. Navy for two years.
At Amherst, he was a leader in the Intramural Council and became president of Kappa Theta. At our senior goat in 1950, we elected him “president for life.” He graduated cum laude in psychology and earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering at UC Berkeley, launching his career in transistors in Silicon Valley. He held five patents on solid-state processes and electronics, two of which were “among the thousand most important patents in the 20th century.” He had a fascinating and creative professional life and a large and loving family. He is survived by his wife, Glorya Hale; four children; two stepchildren; and two grandchildren.
After a course with Professor James Martin, Charlie became a Universalist and was an active member of the church. He was an avid golfer and got deeply involved in local politics in New Mexico.
In his essay in our 50th reunion book in 2000, Charlie waxed eloquent on the subject of the big new world of computers: “The continued rapid improvement in electronic devices from the 1950s to today has revolutionized all our lives and will continue to do so for the next century. … Rote learning is the sort of thing computers can do very well, and teachers could then concentrate on the things they enjoy doing, like teaching concepts and explaining nuances. … If that doesn’t make an Amherst education important, I don’t know what will.” Wise words, written more than 20 years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kingsley Smith ’50