Saratoga News

OBITUARY

Dr. Wallace W. Hall

Wallace W. Hall, president of West Valley College from 1963 to 1970, died Dec. 29 at his Belvedere home. He was 86.

Last May, Hall was the commencement speaker at West Valley College. It was a year of honors for a man who devoted his life to public service. In December, the Tiburon-Belvedere Rotary Club honored him as founder of the local chapter by naming a newly established scholarship fund after him. The Wallace Hall Scholarship will be awarded annually to a high school graduate in southern Marin County. The club also named him Rotarian of the Year for 1995.

The previous year, he had received the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the San Francisco Metropolitan YMCA for his 68 years of volunteer service to the organization. Late last year, he was elected to the San Rafael YMCA Board Emeritus in recognition of the earlier award. He was instrumental in building the YMCA facility in San Rafael and had been a member of the board of managers for 30 years at the time of his death.

Hall served as Marin County superintendent of schools from 1951 to 1958. For 18 years, he was an instructor of political science and economics at the College of Marin, and he later served as a director of the College of Marin Foundation. He was an elected trustee of the Marin Community College District from 1981 to 1985.

From 1958 to 1963, he was associate state superintendent of schools for California and chief of the Division of Public School Administration. He later was head of the Division of Higher Education.

Upon retirement in 1970, he continued his public service as a full-time volunteer, serving as the California state director of the National Retired Teachers' Association, as a member of the state Library Service Board and as a member of the College of Marin's Emeritus Advisory Council. He was a founding director of the Albert Baker Fund in San Francisco, which provides student loans for higher education.

He was a delegate to the White House Conference on Aging in 1981 and served on the board of advisors for the Buck Center on Aging. He was also a longtime member of First Church of Christ, Scientist, Belvedere.

Hall is survived by his wife of 54 years, Elizabeth Claus Hall, his nephews Russell Burgess of Sacramento and Stephen Burgess of Dublin, Calif.

A memorial service was held Jan. 7 at the YMCA in San Rafael.

Donations in his memory may be sent to the San Rafael YMCA, 1500 Los Gamos, Rotary International, or the Albert Baker Fund, 5 Third St., Suite 712, San Francisco, 94103.