Frank Nicholson Pierce PhD's Obituary
Frank Nicholson Pierce, PhD, age 90, passed away on September 29, 2014, at Shands Hospital after a brief illness. A Gainesville resident since 1972, Frank was a popular professor in the UF College of Journalism and Mass Communications, serving as the first Chairman of the Department of Advertising from 1972-76. He continued teaching at UF until 1996. According to Advertising Age (1978), “Under his guidance, UF has developed the largest and best advertising school in the country.”
Frank was born and raised in northeastern Ohio in a family of educators. During his childhood and college years he was an outstanding athlete, playing both basketball and baseball on championship teams at the collegiate level. He served proudly in the US Navy from 1943-47, assigned to the USS Mattaponi as a junior-grade officer and navigator during the ship’s time in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Following military service, Frank earned a BA in liberal arts from the College of Wooster and an MA in Journalism from the University of Missouri, where in 1950 he met his future wife JoAnn Bell. He worked as an advertising manager and editor in Ohio, Seattle, Houston and San Francisco before pursuing his doctoral studies in Advertising at the University of Illinois from 1964-67 and teaching at the University of Texas from 1968-72.
During his years at Texas and Florida, he organized and led 18 trips for an average of 25-30 advertising majors to New York City during Spring Breaks to visit ad agencies, TV networks, magazines, companies and organizations in the communications field.
Frank was devoted to his wife and four children and greatly valued his other relatives, friends, students and professional colleagues, many of whom he kept in close contact with over the years. His interests included reading, writing memoirs, correspondence and other extensive research projects, 20th century history, current affairs, college football, travel and keeping daily records of the weather. For 15 years he wrote, edited and published a quarterly newsletter for his former Navy shipmates on the USS Mattaponi. He served in the US Naval Reserve for 10 years and traveled widely for work and pleasure in Europe, Russia, Uzbekistan, China, Japan, Canada and the United States.
He is survived by four children: Andrew, Meredith, Alison and Matthew; five grandchildren; one great-granddaughter and ten nieces and nephews.
Frank was preceded in death by his beloved wife JoAnn (2010) and three siblings: John R. Pierce, PhD, Helen Pierce Jacob and Ruth Pierce Horch.
A memorial service will be held Monday, November 17, 2014 at 1:30 p.m., at Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. Those wishing to make donations, please contribute to Friends of Five, WUFT-TV; the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Gift Fund, UF Foundation; The Wooster College Fund (1012 Beall Ave., Wooster, OH, 44691); and/or the Gainesville, FL, Chapter of the Military Officers Association of America (P.O. Box 142423, Gainesville, FL 32614-2423).
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