Bill Lane
United States Ambassador to Nauru
In office
December 6, 1985 – April 29, 1989
PresidentRonald Reagan
Preceded byRobert D. Nesen
Succeeded byMel Sembler
United States Ambassador to Australia
In office
December 6, 1985 – April 29, 1989
PresidentRonald Reagan
Preceded byRobert D. Nesen
Succeeded byMelvin F. Sembler
Personal details
Born(1919-11-07)November 7, 1919
Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.
DiedJuly 31, 2010(2010-07-31) (aged 90)
Political partyRepublican
SpouseJean Gimbel Lane
Children3
Parent(s)Laurence William Lane (father),
Ruth Bell (mother)
Alma materStanford University

Laurence William Lane Jr. (November 7, 1919 – July 31, 2010) was an American magazine publisher, diplomat, and philanthropist.

Early life and education

Lane was born November 7, 1919, to Laurence William Lane (1890 – February 20, 1967) and Ruth Bell. His father was known as "Larry", so he was generally called "Bill". In 1928, the family moved from Des Moines, Iowa[1] where Larry Lane was advertising director for the Meredith Corporation (publisher of Better Homes and Gardens magazine) to California.[1] The Lane family owned and published Sunset Magazine.[2] Lane graduated from Palo Alto High School.[3]

Bill Lane attended Pomona College before transferring to Stanford University to study Journalism.[4] He was a member of the Stanford Chaparral. After graduating with a bachelor's degree from Stanford, he joined the US Navy during World War II.[4]

Lane married Donna Jean Gimbel in 1955, they met while she was working as an interior designer in Chicago.[5][6]

Career

As their father phased himself out of the business, Bill took over the Sunset Magazine publishing and brother Melvin (1922–2007) managed the Sunset Books business.[7]

Lane was the first mayor and one of the founders of Portola Valley, California in 1964.[8] From 1975 to 1976, he served as US Ambassador-at-large and lived in Japan. From 1985 to 1989, he was appointed US Ambassador to Australia and Nauru.[9] Ronald Reagan knew Lane from their membership in the Los Rancheros Vistadores horseback riding club.[10][11]

The Lane publishing business was sold to Time Warner in 1990. In March 1993 he was appointed an honorary officer of the Order of Australia for service to Australian-American relations.[12]

In 1995, Lane was named Conservationist of the Year by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA).[4]

In 2006, Lane received the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration's Pugsley Medal in 2006 because of his contributions to parks and conservation with advocacy through his magazine, leadership positions on a host of national and regional boards and advisory committees, and personal philanthropy.[3]

Philanthropy, death and legacy

The Lane family were large donors to Stanford University including renovations in 1983 to the Palo Alto Stock Farm Horse Barn[13] and after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, for the reconstruction of the Stanford Memorial Church and other historic campus buildings.[14] In 2005, a donation to Stanford University named the Center for the Study of the North American West department after the Lane family.[15]

The Lanes sponsored an internship program starting in 2002, the Bill and Jean Lane Internship Endowment at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution.[16]

In 2005, Lane and his wife (who graduated from Northwestern University in 1952) funded the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance.[17] In 2015, an additional $5 million endowment to Northwestern University was announced.[18]

With a large donation to the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, the Lanes established the Jean and Bill Lane Botanical Library in 1994, a non-lending library focusing on South African, Australian, New Zealand, and California plants.[19][20]

Bill and Jean Lane endowed the Lane Family Lectureship in Environmental Science at Washington State University.[21] The lecture was inaugurated in 1993. With their son, Robert, a 1983 WSU graduate, they also created the Robert Lane Fellowship in Environmental Science to support graduate students studying environmental science at Washington State University.[21]

Bill Lane died on July 31, 2010, at the age of 90.[5] His wife, Jean Lane, died in Portola Valley on 18 November 2017, after a brief illness, at the age of 87.[6] Together they were survived by their three children, two daughters Sharon Louise Lane and Brenda Lane Munks and a son Robert Laurence Lane.[22]

References

  1. 1 2 Marion Softky (November 5, 2009). "Bill Lane turns 90 and is still going strong". The Almanac. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  2. ↑ Kevin Starr (1998). "A New Owner, A New Vision". Sunset magazine: a century of Western living, 1898-1998. Stanford University Libraries. ISBN 978-0-911221-17-6. Retrieved May 26, 2010.
  3. 1 2 "L.W. "Bill" Lane, Jr. | American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration". aapra.org. Archived from the original on 2018-06-21. Retrieved 2018-06-21.
  4. 1 2 3 Nelson, Valerie J. (5 August 2010). "L.W. 'Bill' Lane Jr. dies at 90; longtime Sunset publisher". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2018-06-20.
  5. 1 2 Dave Boyce. "So long to Bill Lane: Valley icon, publisher and philanthropist dies at age 90". The Almanac. Retrieved December 23, 2016.
  6. 1 2 Boyce, Dave (2017). "Jean Lane, philanthropist and environmentalist, dies at 87". The Almanac. Retrieved 2018-06-20.
  7. ↑ Marion Softky (August 8, 2007). "Obituary: Sunset's Mel Lane helped save coastlines and open spaces". The Almanac. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved May 26, 2010.
  8. ↑ David Boyce (August 15, 2007). "Portola Valley's Bill and Jean Lane honored for their philanthropy". The Almanac. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  9. ↑ "L. W. Lane, Jr". Council of American Ambassadors web site. 2004. Archived from the original on January 4, 2007. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  10. ↑ Ronald Reagan; Kiron K. Skinner; Annelise Graebner Anderson; Martin Anderson (2003). Reagan: a life in letters. Simon and Schuster. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-7432-1966-2.
  11. ↑ Jane Knoerle (June 16, 2004). "Reagan and Lane: They rode the range together". The Almanac. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  12. ↑ "Lane, Laurence William", It's an Honour web site, Australia Government, retrieved December 23, 2016
  13. ↑ "History". Stanford Equestrian. Retrieved 2018-06-21.
  14. ↑ "Bill Lane, Stanford benefactor and Sunset publisher, dead at". Stanford Report. August 2, 2010. Retrieved December 23, 2016.
  15. ↑ Lisa Kwiatkowski (February 25, 2005). "Bill Lane makes a gift of $5 million to endow Stanford's Center for the Study of the North American West". Stanford University. Retrieved May 24, 2010.
  16. ↑ "Bill and Jean Lane Internship Endowment". Smithsonian Institution. September 10, 2008. Archived from the original on June 9, 2009. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  17. ↑ "Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance". Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. Archived from the original on December 24, 2016. Retrieved December 23, 2016.
  18. ↑ Erin Meyer (October 8, 2015). "$5M to Fund Renowned Northwestern Piano Award In Perpetuity: Jean Gimbel Lane's generosity brings world-famous pianists to campus". Northwestern Now. Retrieved December 23, 2016.
  19. ↑ "Jean and Bill Lane Botanical Library". University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). Retrieved 2019-06-10.
  20. ↑ Waters, Christina; Bezore, Buz (2005). Explorer's Guide Big Sur, Monterey Bay & Gold Coast Wine Country: A Great Destination. The Countryman Press. pp. 93–94. ISBN 9781581570748.
  21. 1 2 "Lane Family Lecture in Environmental Science". School of the Environment, Washington State University. Retrieved 2019-02-05.
  22. ↑ "In Memoriam: Jean Lane". The Bill Lane Center for the American West. Stanford University. 21 December 2017. Retrieved 2018-06-21.
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