Walter A. Krienke

© The Guthrie News Leader

Tuesday, July 8, 2003

Submitted by: Bob Chada

Services are pending with Davis Funeral Home in Guthrie for Walter A. Krienke, 95, of Ann Arbor, Mich. formerly of Enid. Krienke died Monday, July 7, 2003 in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Walter A. Krienke

© The Guthrie News Leader

Wednesday, July 9, 2003

Submitted by: Bob Chada

Funeral services for Walter A. Krienke, 95, Associate Professor Emeritus of Dairy Science at the University of Florida and the inventor of the modern process of making cottage cheese, will take place in the church in which he was baptized, Trinity Lutheran Church of Lahoma, at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 12, 2003. At 3 p.m. he will be laid to rest in a graveside service next to his wife in Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie. Services are under the direciton of Davis Funeral Home of Guthrie.

Krienke was born October 2, 1907 on a farm near Enid in Oklahoma Territory, six weeks before Oklahoma became a state, to Herman and Elizabetrh (Rutz) Krienke. He died at Arbor Hospice in Ann Arbor, Mich., on Monday, July 7, 2003.

As a farm youth he showed an early interest in the science of agriculture by selecting a few reddish colored spikes of wheat in his father's wheat field. He developed these into a high-yielding variety of wheat that became known as the "Krienke Red" and was widely palnted in the Garfield County area. He was also prominently active in the 4-H Club that won the Oklahoma State Championship for three successive years.

His parents sacrificed to send him to Oklahoma A & M College (now Oklahoma State University), from which he graduated in June 1932, during the height of the Depression, with a BS degree in Dairy Manufactures. There he was elected to Phi Sigma, honorary biological fraternity and to Alpha Zeta, honorary agricultural fraternity. Despite the Depression's decimation of jobs, he was offered a position at the Carnation Company in Tulsa in April, 1932, which he took immediately since he had completed his coursework earlier.

Though he has never received official recognition of his contribution, he invented the modern process of making cottage cheese in his first few days of work at the Carnation Milk plant in Tulsa. With sales of his cottage cheese skyrocketing, the Carnation Company quickly sent Walter around to various plants in the plains area to teach this new technique. In 1933 Carnation transferred him to the important market of Houston, Texas, to inaugurate cottage cheese manufacture there. In 1936 he was promoted to Plant Superintendent of the Carnation Plant in Wichita Falls, Texas. Here he soon realized that he did not have the scientific knowledge he believed he should have in this position, and in 1938, he returned to Oklahoma A & M to pursue a Master of Science degree. This degree was award in August, 1940, and the following month he was appointed Instructor in Dairying at his alma matter. In 1942 he was made Assistant Professor of Dairying in School of Agriculture and was also appointed Assistant Dairyman, Agricultural Experiment Station.

As World War II was winding down, he was accepted into the doctoral program in dairying at the University of Illinois. Concurrently, he was appointed Assistant Dairy Technologist at the Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station, serving from May 1945 until December 1946. Concerned that there could be a postwar depression similar to the one after World War I, he took a position on January 1, 1947, as Associate Professor of Dairying at the University of Florida and as Associate Dairy Technologist in the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station. Though he had hoped to be able to resume his doctoral studies during summer months, the financial burdens of a growing family did not permit him to do so.

Nevertheless, many of his colleagues and students believed he fully deserved the title of "doctor." Prof. Krienke retired as Associate Professor Emeritus from the University of Florida in 1976.

During his association with the University of Florida, Prof. Krienke authored or co-authored more than 35 scientific papers, 33 popular articles and numerous station circulars. He was amoung the first in 1948 to establish that antibiotics were present in milk coming from dairies, and at his insistence the state of Florida became the first in the nation to routinely test milk for the presence of antibiotics. He then served as chair of the Antibiotic Committee of the American Dairy Science Association from 1949 to 1955. He also was responsible for discovering that improperly installed milk pipelines and improperly operated milk pumps at producing farms were seriously contributing to milk rancidity. This resulted in the establishment, nationwide, of new methods of installation and operation of this equipment. It was during this time that he was elected to Sigma Xi Honorary Society for Natural Science. Later efforts of Prof. Krienke resulted in such contributions as determining the viscosity of ice cream mix, vitamin K and lactic acid fermentation in milk, oxidized flavor in milk, spray-drying of milk, and secretion by the cow of dietary phosphorus in milk. After many years of productive work, in 1973 he received the first annual Educator Award from the International Association of Milk, Food and Environmental Sanitarians.

Prof. Krienke was a member of First Lutheran Church of Gainesville, Florida, from 1947 to the present. He had served as Financial Secretary and Treasurer, Sunday School Superintendent and Chairman of the Board of Trustees, among other positions. In 1961 he was chairman of the Lutheran Student Commission of the Florida-Georgia District, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Mr. Krienke married Anna (Elsie) Freudenberger of Pleasant Valley, Oklahoma, in 1932. They celebrated 62 years of marriage before she passed away in 1995.

Survivors include three children: John (Carolyn) Krienke of Ann Arbor, Mich., Albert (Rosemary) Krienke of Wichita Falls, Texas, and Ruth Brady of Roswell, Ga; six grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and three brothers, Louis, Gus and Art (Ruth) Krienke all of Oklahoma.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Herman and Elizabeth (Rutz) Krienke, two brothers and four sisters.

The family suggest memorial contrubtions be made to the Oklahoma State University Foundation, Attn: Milford H. Jenkins, PO Box 1749, Stillwater, OK 74078-1749, designated for the Walter A. Krienke Animal Science Scholarship Fund.