Orme Phelps, 96; Dean, Professor at Claremont McKenna College
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Orme Phelps, 96, former dean of the faculty and professor of economics at Claremont McKenna College, died Thursday at his home in Claremont after a brief illness.
Born in Oklahoma Territory, Phelps earned three degrees at the University of Chicago. He taught there for five years before being lured to what was then Claremont Men’s College in 1947 by founding President George C.S. Benson.
“There were about 230 students when I came in the second year of the college’s operation, and about two-thirds of them were on the GI Bill,” Phelps told the college magazine last year. “I had the most wonderful classes I’d ever encountered.”
His textbook “Introduction to Labor Economics” has been required reading at more than 80 colleges and universities.
Phelps retired from the college in 1974. An avid athlete, he climbed trees into his 70s and rode his bicycle until age 90.
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