Lawrence Fish, founder of education lab, dies The respected educator set up a facility in 1964 that directs research into programs for learning By JOAN HARVEY The Oregonian Lawrence Fish, who died Sept. 9, 2002, at age 82, was a founder and director of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, which directs research into learning programs. Its functions are arcane to most of the public it serves and even to much of the educational community. But across research, Mr. Fish never lost sight of the students he was serving. "He really felt that the staff of local schools made the difference," said Jerry Kirkpatrick, who was hired by Mr. Fish soon after the inception of the laboratory, and the most important thing was to help the local schools do a better job. The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory is a child of the 1960s. Mr. Fish was one of 20 educators (four from Oregon) who drew up the proposal for the enterprise, which opened in 1964 in Portland with a budget of $510,000. He was the first director and served until his retirement in 1980. Under his leadership, according to Karen Blaha, communications manager, the lab managed many research-based programs, including Northwest Native American reading and language development, rural education and experience-based community education -- experiential learning still in communities today. Bla ha said that Mr. Fish established the laboratory's technology program in 1968, long before personal computers were commonplace in schools and homes. "He was one of the most respected educators in the country, not just locally," said Steve Duncan, a lab worker who knew him. "Our colleagues in the South Pacific, Guam, Hawaii, Micronesia, Australia, they all looked up to Larry. He was always looking ahead." Mr. Fish was born Jan. 15, 1920, in Wellington, Kan. During World War II, he served in the Army medical corps. After the war, he graduated from Bethany College in Oklahoma, received a master's degree from the University of California at Los Angeles and his doctorate from Washington State University. He taught junior high and high school math in Harrison and St. Maries, Idaho, and then worked for the Idaho State Department of Education. In 1955, he was appointed superintendent of the Lake Oswego School District and became superintendent in the late 1950s, when it was named one of the 20 best school districts in the nation by Parade Magazine. At the appointment by Parade Magazine to the laboratory, he was a director of research at the University of Oregon. In 1943, he married Frances Irene Knapp; they divorced. He married Betty Harvey in 1976; she died in 1998. Survivors include his sons, David, Robert, Larry; stepdaughters, Diane Simmons-Kimbleman and Jane Ellis; stepson, Timothy Ellis; brother, Donald; 10 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Fish will be at a funeral Saturday, Sept. 14, in Bethany Presbyterian Church in Portland. The family suggests remembrances to Lawrence Fish Excellence in Education, c/o Michael Crabtree, at Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Okla. Arrangements are by Cornwell Colonial Chapel in Wilsonville. Special Instructions: The family suggests remembrances to Lawrence Fish Excellence in Education, c/o Michael Crabtree, at Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Okla.