TRANSITIONS.

Honoring: Retired Pennsylvania forester Norman Lacasse, recipient of the national Jefferson Award for his community service to Pennsylvania's Capital Area Greenbelt Association and work with minority youths in the Harrisburg area.

Sam Foster, new dean of the College of Forest Resources and director of the Forest and Wildlife Research Center at Mississippi State University. Foster was previously assistant director of the U.S. Forest Service's Southern Research Station in Asheville, NC.

Frederick J. Mummett, first recipient of the Frederick J. Mummett Distinguished Service Award from the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Association.

Henry Diamond, with an outstanding achievement award from The Conservation Fund, Eastman Kodak Co., and the National Geographic Society, for his work as one of the fathers of the greenspace movement.

Mourning: Former AMERICAN FORESTS Board member and treasurer Charlie Roper, Peake professor of forestry at Auburn University, Alabama.

Ray Bell, the man who nursed Smokey Bear back to health after the soon-to-be-famous cub was injured in a 1950 forest fire. Bell, who died in December of cancer at age 89, cared for the cub in his home for two months, calling Smokey a "mite domineering" over the family's pets and a bit of a ham, the Associated Press obituary said.

Monroe Bush, 79, a foundation executive and former writer for American Forests.

AMERICAN FORESTS member and Greeley Award recipient William Roy Sizemore, 82, in Tallassee, Alabama.