A tribute to her father, from Cynthia Del Castillo:
Hard to fathom, but today would have been my Dad's 100th birthday! Born in 1915 in Gadsden, Alabama...the only child of a Railroad man and a Sunday-school teacher. Handsome and charismatic with a beautiful deep voice, Jimmy Strain left home at 18 (in the middle of the depression) and headed to California where he studied linguistics and diction at USC to rid himself of his southern accent and immediately went in to radio, where he enjoyed a long career as an announcer and programmer. He later transitioned to television at NBC out of NY and was VP of sales for the central region of the country. He loved boxing, football, baseball and was a scratch golfer, having the privilege to play with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Married twice, he fathered 4 girls (who all looked like him!) and to his joy, got 4 grandsons out of them! A heavy smoker, he passed from complications of emphysema at 75. I honor you today, Daddy. The older I get, the more I realize what an incredible influence you were on who I am today.4
Norman Arthur Shepard, Class of 1910, Yale.
Honors in Special Studies (June 1909): Won "The Penfield Prize" for Excellence in Mineralogy.
Honors in Excellence of all Studies for the Junior Year (Chemistry).
Member, Sigma Xi (Sheffield Scientific School Honorary Society) - 1910
Graduated Yale, Class of 1910; Ph.B., 1910 & Ph.D., 1913. Dissertation: "Researches on Pyrimidines: Uramils and Thiouramils."
From 1913 - 1919, he taught at Yale:
Laboratory Assistant/Instructor/Appointed Assistant Professor of Chemistry in 1917 (in the Sheffield Scientific School)
He resigned from the Yale faculty in 1919 to become a Research Chemist for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, OH.
In 1936, Dr. Shepard resigned as director of chemical research at the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company to be-
come Director of Technical Services at the American Cyanamid Company.
Also in 1936, he was the Division Chair, American Chemical Society, Division of Rubber.
During World War II, he served on the War Production Board and the Baruch Rubber Survey Committee.
He was the author of several scientific papers in the field of Organic Chemistry.