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Latest News 01-27-2007
NPMAS Looses Ron Parmentier
The Neville Public Museum Astronomical Societies founder, Ronald H. Parmentier, passed away on January 7th 2008. He was born on May 23rd, 1933. Ron enjoyed living his life long passion, amateur astronomy. His mentor was the late Carl Elias, a well established telescope maker and mirror grinder who taught Ron the fine points of mirror grinding and telescope making. After his collegiate days at St Norbert College and a few years of service to his country as a member of the Army, Ron settled back home in Green Bay where he began a long teaching career at DePere East High School.
During this time he was finally able to finish polishing his skills as a mirror maker and telescope builder. He ground and figured just about every size of mirror from six inches all the way up through twenty inches. While others may have been content to rest there, Ron was not. He managed to find the time to help found the Neville Public Museum Astronomical Society in 1966. He served the club faithfully for many years as President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer. There were many times in the early days when monthly club meetings had two or three people attending and Ron just kept on pushing through it. It did not matter that there were ten people in the club and only two or three at a monthly meeting, Ron kept doing it. Eventually more people joined the club, being infected by Ron’s passion for the hobby, and it grew into the club it is today. Ron became a mentor to us all.
In 1981 he finally realized a long dream of owning his own observatory as construction of the Parmentier Observatory was completed. The observatory originally housed his home made twenty inch telescope until 1988 when Ron installed the current thirty inch classical cassegrain telescope. Ron was a well seasoned observer also. He spent many nights at the telescope doing just about all aspects of observational astronomy from the planets to deep sky objects and asteroids to occultations. He even spent a great amount of time photographing the heavens and taking detailed videos of the various phases of the Moon.
If you think that was enough for Ron, you are wrong. He also enjoyed traveling and attending numerous astronomy related conventions, star parties, and solar eclipses. In doing so he not only met many professional and amateur astronomers throughout the world, he took great joy in introducing them to those of us that were fortunate enough to have traveled with him along the way. Ron was never afraid to talk with anybody and truly enjoyed meeting and getting to know people. It did not matter who you were, he was just as excited getting to know the members of our club as he was a prominent astronomer.
Ron was both gracious and generous. He was truly a friend to us all and will be sorely missed.
Parmentier Observatory Notice
In keeping with the provisions of Ron Parmentier’s estate and observatory lease, use and access to the Parmentier Observatory and its grounds is currently prohibited. All Parmentier Observatory weekends scheduled for this year have been cancelled at this time. We are in the process of negociating a new agreement and hope to have things finalized before the observing season starts. If you have questions, please contact George McCourt.