Commentaries

Visiting the Tangshan Earthquake Memorial and Museum

By John Richard Schrock

Published October 18, 2018 at 2:02 PM CDT

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Professor John Richard Schrock standing outside the Tangshan Earthquake Museum.

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Professor and KPR Commentator John Richard Schrock standing outside the Tangshan Earthquake Memorial and Museum.

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The deadliest earthquake of the 20th Century took place in China in 1976. It killed more than a quarter million people. Commentator John Richard Schrock visited a massive memorial located near the epicenter of the earthquake, a mining town in northeast China.

Commentator John Richard Schrock is professor emeritus at Emporia State University. He's also been a visiting teacher and lecturer in China since the mid-1970s. He lives in Emporia.

Production assistance for this commentary was provided by KPR News Intern Taylor Smith, a junior from Salina, studying news and information at the University of Kansas.

Commentaries

John Richard Schrock

Schrock attended Indiana State University in Terre Haute, where tuition was $8 a semester hour in 1964, completing a bachelor's degree in biology teaching and a master's in science education. He began teaching in Kentucky before he graduated from I.S.U., and completed his degrees during summers. Schrock taught five years in Alexandria, Kentucky middle and high schools and two years at the I.S.U. Laboratory School before going overseas to teach at Hong Kong International School for three years. Schrock completed his Ph.D. in entomology working on insect ecology and systematics at the University of Kansas and, upon graduation, worked for the Association of Systematics Collections for three years. When the A.S.C. moved to Washington, DC, Schrock took the position at Emporia State University, directing biology teacher training. He was on the state biology committee and closely involved in the Kansas evolution debates of 1999. He writes a weekly Kansas newspaper column on education, produces public radio commentaries, and appears monthly on Kansas television.

See stories by John Richard Schrock