Spring Break
Friends remember brilliant prankster
By: Jill Beathard
Issue date: 12/2/08 Section: News
An Eagle Scout and member of the Boy Scout Board of the Arrow, William Nathan Rountree had dreams of attending graduate school and possibly becoming a professor.
Rountree died Nov. 5, and the cause of death has not yet been determined. He was 24.
He met girlfriend Kathy Eheman in an animal nutrition class in fall 2007.
"He was so smart, but he was so modest and humble about it. He never made you feel dumb. He tutored me, he helped me out so much," said Eheman, who graduated in August. "That's what he wanted to do, he wanted to be a professor. But it was research that he really loved doing."
"I was always surprised by how much he knew about pretty much everything," said senior biology major Derack Medel who worked with Roundtree in the lab. "We would always compete to see who could get the best grades, and he would always edge me out by about one or two points."
Family and friends remember Rountree playing lots of practical jokes. Medel said he would hook disposable camera parts up to a doorknob so that it would shock people when they grabbed it.
"He had a really good sense of humor, sometimes at the expense of others," Medel said. "We were both kind of old guys in our class, we both knew stuff from the 80s, remembered stuff from when we were kids. He was exactly like me it was weird."
The two friends worked for associate professor of horticulture science Greg Cobb, performing electron microscopy on grapes.
Cobb said that the goal of their research was to understand some of the mechanisms that control Pierce's Disease, a disease that could potentially wipe out the grapes grown in Texas. He said that Rountree's progress in learning about these mechanisms will be published in the next two months.
Rountree became involved in the life of Eheman's son, Hunter, going to his baseball and soccer games. "From the very beginning they got along great," Eheman said. "My son loved him. He had started calling him Dad."
Rountree died Nov. 5, and the cause of death has not yet been determined. He was 24.
He met girlfriend Kathy Eheman in an animal nutrition class in fall 2007.
"He was so smart, but he was so modest and humble about it. He never made you feel dumb. He tutored me, he helped me out so much," said Eheman, who graduated in August. "That's what he wanted to do, he wanted to be a professor. But it was research that he really loved doing."
"I was always surprised by how much he knew about pretty much everything," said senior biology major Derack Medel who worked with Roundtree in the lab. "We would always compete to see who could get the best grades, and he would always edge me out by about one or two points."
Family and friends remember Rountree playing lots of practical jokes. Medel said he would hook disposable camera parts up to a doorknob so that it would shock people when they grabbed it.
"He had a really good sense of humor, sometimes at the expense of others," Medel said. "We were both kind of old guys in our class, we both knew stuff from the 80s, remembered stuff from when we were kids. He was exactly like me it was weird."
The two friends worked for associate professor of horticulture science Greg Cobb, performing electron microscopy on grapes.
Cobb said that the goal of their research was to understand some of the mechanisms that control Pierce's Disease, a disease that could potentially wipe out the grapes grown in Texas. He said that Rountree's progress in learning about these mechanisms will be published in the next two months.
Rountree became involved in the life of Eheman's son, Hunter, going to his baseball and soccer games. "From the very beginning they got along great," Eheman said. "My son loved him. He had started calling him Dad."
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