So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright
by Dave Grieve
Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 2:05 pm

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Ashley Crooker, for many years Secretary-Treasurer of the IAI, died on Saturday, July 1, and his passing represents the end of an era. Ashley took over the reigns of the pivotal position when the IAI had fallen on hard times. Frankly, the IAI was not much of a professional organization in those days, far more a social club than the Caldwell concept of providing relevant education, and the annual conference was a fine party if one was part of the inner circle. Walter Hoetzer had died unexpectedly several years earlier, leaving the IAI in a state of turmoil. Walt was a kindly man who kept the IAI going through some lackluster administrations, and few others knew how to make the thing work. Walt died when Kay McClanahan was president, and in an unorthodox move, she appointed herself Secretary-Treasurer for the remainder of his term, then ran for the office in her own right. The position was elective in those days. Although the IAI was already stagnant and steadily losing membership, Kay, for whatever reason, seemed to hasten its demise.

Ashley ran for the office against Kay. I wasn't a big fan of Kay's but I knew Ashley only by casual contact, and that was not entirely favorable. With his goatee and bald head, he could have been cast as a perfect villain in any horror movie, and he kind of played on that from time to time. But I learned one thing about him before that election that convinced me he was man of character. It seems a few years earlier, Ashley had repeated the rumor that Bob Olsen had plagiarized his book. There were some folks who did their utmost to discredit Bob, and Ashley had passed on what seemed to come from a reliable source. Ashley learned the truth about Bob in 1982, a conference Bob could not attend but had prepared his incredible paper, Cult of the Mediocre. I suppose most of us would have just been content to have the record set straight, but Ashley picked up the telephone and called Bob back in Kansas to apologize. I recall Bob telling me that it was the most sincere apology he ever got from a stranger.

I worked with Ashley for a number of years. We differed on a lot of subjects, but I never met anyone who did more for the organization during trying times. He always thought first of the association and did a remarkable job working from a spare room office with no help for most of his tenure. He kept his word, did his best, helped the IAI turn things around, and did so while silently suffering sometimes excessive scorn from a pompous president or two. Diabetes took its toll on Ashley, making certain tasks harder and sapping his energy. He had lapses that got more pronounced, but his heart was in the right place even when the rest of him began to fail. He was a fine man who contributed greatly to the betterment of the IAI, and he deserves that recognition. Every conversation I ever had with him ended with the same farewell - keep smiling, kid. And so he did.

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