[oregon] Linus Pauling Honored With First Class Stamp

1390. He graduated from what would become OSU in 1922, defined the nature of the chemical bond (garnering the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954), spoke truth to power about war (garnering the Nobel Peace Price in 1962), and rode Vitamin C like a hobby horse (extoling benefits which are still the subject of some debate).

In 2008, he recieved a singular honor; his likeness on a postage stamp, and enters popular immortality:

When I was growing up, one of the people I was told I should admire was Linus Pauling, especially because he was Oregonian and had done so much. I have my doubts about his position on Vitamin C, but the rest of it is awe-inspiring and remains so; his work still forms some of the basis of modern biochemistry. And even though he spent his professional and personal life after OAC in California, He remained an Oregonian at heart to the last; when his wfe Ava (herself his collegiate sweetheart – he born in what we today call Lake Oswego, her in Beavercreek) died he donated their combined papers to OSU; two years after his death, the Linus Pauling Insitute, dedicated to human health, moved from its longtime base in Palo Alto, California to the OSU campus.

He even contributed to the development of the first electric car, the Henney Kilowatt, cited by some as the predecessor to the EV1. He was smarter than anyone likely to be reading this discourse, as a matter of fact.

I personally am excited that someone like this gets the stamp honor. Too few Oregonians do, overall (Tom McCall stamp, anyone? Who's with me?). This stamp is part of a series of four, including Gerti Cory, Edwin Hubble, and John Bardeen. You have to be pretty historic to run with this crew, yo.

More details have been mounted by OSU here.

Tags: USPS, Linus Pauling, Famous Oregonians, Postage Stamps, philately