Gordon Lawrence Bender, 92, passed away June 14, 2011. Gordon was Professor of Zoology at ASU for 28 years (1953-1981), retiring as Professor Emeritus of Life Sciences. He served a term as Department Chair. For many summers, he conducted a Summer Institute in Desert Biology. Funded by the National Science Foundation, it was the only one of its kind and introduced college biology teachers from all over the world to the study of arid lands. He served as Interim Program Director of the Institutes Section of the National Science Foundation at Washington, D.C. (1962-63). In 1965, he traveled to Jodhpur, India, where he taught high school biology teachers, and twice he went to the Kufra Oasis of Libya where he worked with a UNESCO project to develop agriculture in the Sahara desert. He was a Fellow and President of the Southwestern and Rocky Mountain Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Chairman of that organization’s Committee on Desert and Arid Zones Research, member and President of the Arizona Academy of Science, and a member of Phi Kappa Phi. He edited the Reference Handbook on the Deserts of North America and the directory that he helped to create of desert scientists throughout the world. Prior to ASU, Gordon taught at Bemidji State Teachers College in Minnesota, worked in the chemistry department of Washington State College, the biology department at Illinois Wesleyan University, and was botany instructor at the University of Illinois, where he earned his Ph.D. in entomology. Gordon earned his Master of Science degree at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His B.S. degree was from Iowa State College. Gordon was preceded in death by his parents. He is survived by his wife Marion, four daughters, eleven grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren and many cousins.