Mr. Chemistry
Celebrates a Century Based on a 2007 History 418 project by Nydia Lovell ’09 and Holly Oakley Additional content by Jeff Olson
M
alcolm MacKenzie Renfrew celebrated his 100th birthday on Oct. 12, 2010. His life’s path has taken him from the lumber mills of Potlatch, Idaho, to wartime research and development of breakthrough polymers, and from performing in a traveling repertory theater tent show, to teaching and mentoring generations of young chemists. He is an alumnus of the University of Idaho who worked for more than 20 years in the chemical industry at the highest level of chemical research and development. The contacts he made during those years served him well when he returned to the University in 1959 to lead it to national prominence. As one colleague stated: “Malcolm Renfrew is a supporter of all things positive.”
Early Years Renfrew was born in Spokane, Wash., but since his father was an accountant whose job location changed, he spent time growing up in several towns in Washington and Idaho before his family moved to Potlatch. Summers were spent working at the Potlatch Mill for $3 a day. He graduated from Potlatch High School in 1928, and was influenced to attend the University of Idaho when the University’s president, Frederick Kelly, came to speak to the Potlatch students. Malcolm recalls Kelly encouraged students to gain a broad understanding of subjects before choosing a major. He also wanted to eliminate all academic grades because he felt striving for high grades inhibited education. However, he never received permission to
implement his plan at the University of Idaho. From Idaho, Kelly moved to Washington, D.C., to assume a high position in the Department of Higher Education. At Idaho, Renfrew joined Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and the staff of the Argonaut, the student newspaper. He seriously considered journalism as a major until he had a run-in with the new University president, Mervin Gordon Neale, over an editorial he had written against a required student fee to support athletics. He chose chemistry as his major, attracted by the potential of better-paying jobs. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1932, in the midst of the Depression with little opportunity for employment. The University had an immediate need for a physics teaching assistant and offered the job to Malcolm. The following year he was awarded a chemistry teaching Malcolm Renfrew assistantship. He earned a master’s as an Idaho degree in chemistry in 1934. undergraduate; Malcolm had a friend who was 1931 Gem of from Rosalia, Wash., and attended the Mountains Washington State College. He asked her if she knew of any students from Rosalia who were attending the University of Idaho. She mentioned Carol Campbell, but qualified the information by saying, “You wouldn’t like her.” While a graduate student, Malcolm asked a member of his fraternity, whose sister was a sorority sister of Carol Campbell’s, to arrange for him to meet Carol. He had 7