Daughter of Rice’s 1st architecture professor dies at age 95
Ray Watkin Strange appeared in recent Lovett Hall video

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

Ray Watkin Strange, whose father supervised the planning and building of Lovett Hall, died March 21 at age 95. She appeared in the recent video commemorating the 100th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone of of Lovett Hall and essentially the foundation of higher education in Houston.

”My father was William Ward Watkin, who came to Houston in 1910 from Boston to supervise the building of the first building of Rice University,” Strange said in the video. She went on to explain that her father founded the School of Architecture at Rice to fulfill the vision that the Rice Institute be dedicated to art (in addition to letters and science). The recent Lovett Hall celebration acknowledged these significant developments in Rice’s history as the university prepares for its centennial year in 2012.

Strange graduated from Rice with a Bachelor of Arts degree in French, art and art history in 1936. She also received a Master of Arts degree in architecture from Rice in 1944. She was the first of William Watkin’s three children and the last to die.

Centennial historian Melissa Kean ’96 recalled Strange’s dedication to Rice and the Watkins’ contributions to the university in her ”Rice History Corner” blog, http://bit.ly/fQEwtq.