Gary Peters, who served as chair of the College of Liberal Arts at Cal State Long Beach, died on Friday. He was 71 years old.
Peters was also a geography professor and chair of the geography department at CSULB, but his legacy in the geography department lived on years after he left in 1999. He then continued teaching and fulfilled his faculty early retirement program at his alma mater school, Chico State University.
Peters was diagnosed with bladder cancer in September 1999. He underwent chemotherapy twice and went into remission both times before it returned again for good and ended his battle on Sept. 4, 2012.
“Every day was a very exceptional experience,” his wife Carol Peters said. “He’s the most brilliant person.”
Peters came to CSULB in 1971 with hopes of becoming a professor, after serving in the Navy and attending Penn State University, where he earned his master’s and doctorate degrees in geography.
Judith Tyner, a CSULB professor Emerita that worked with Peters, said subjects that drew close to Peters’ heart included the geography of viticulture – which focuses on winemaking – and population geography. Peters even brought his passion of the wine country to the geography department.
“It was a harmonious department … we as a group socialized together,” said Tyner, who worked with Peters since he started teaching at CSULB. “When he was a chair, faculty meetings always had wine and cheese. That’s probably why we were so harmonious.”
Peters published a number of books and articles while teaching at CSULB, including “American Winescapes: The Cultural Landscapes Of America’s Wine Country” and “Biographical Dictionary of Geography.”
“He was publishing more than anyone else in the department,” Tyner said. “At least every year he would have something published.”
Other than reading and writing, Peters also had a love for travel and discovering the land that the world has to offer, his wife said. Peters took every travel opportunity available with his wife and two children.
“He was always our travel guide,” she said. “The kids, he and I have been to Europe 17 times.
[Our] summers were spent traveling.”
“We were all very shocked that he passed away,” Dean Fairbanks, chair of the geography and planning department at Chico State, said. “He was an extremely kind guy and really helpful.”
Peters is survived by his wife, Carol Peters, and his two children Erika Poppen, 39, and Jason Lynn Peters, 41.