Conrad Liden, a former assistant to the dean at the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and a University Police firearms instructor, died Oct. 28 from congestive heart failure. He was 87.
Family and friends described Liden as a true son of the soil and a master marksman, a man who – despite his high academic achievements – was as earthy as the land he worked over a lifetime.
In addition to his service to the university, Liden helped develop the infamous DDT pesticide as an Army scientist during World War II, and he traveled around the world to set up agricultural schools and study farming in other countries.
Conrad Harper Liden was born on Dec. 31, 1920, and grew up on a working farm near Federalsburg in Caroline County. He received his bachelor’s degree in vocational agriculture from this university in 1942. He finished his master’s in agronomy, the study of soil management and production of crops, in 1949, when he developed a type of red clover resistant to disease, said his wife of 61 years, Marjorie Higman Liden.
He also led research at a farm in Caroline County until 1948, and was an assistant professor at this university until 1951.
After returning from his world travels in 1958, Liden served as administrative assistant to the dean of the College of Agriculture until 1977, when he took charge of the college’s printing operations. He centralized the printing of press packets, manuals and other instructional publications for the college and its affiliated farms around the state. He employed around 20 students to work at the print shop, said his daughter, Elizabeth A. Cooley, who worked in the shop before graduating from the university in 1972.
Liden retired from the duplicating service in 1981, leaving on a Friday, but then joined the university’s police department as a firearms instructor that Monday, said his daughter, Margaret L. Neily (class of 1970).
As an instructor, Liden employed a mastery of shooting honed throughout his life. He had grown up with guns, coached the U.S. Olympic shooting team in the late 1960s, instructed at National Rifle Association championships in the 1970s and traveled the country setting up youth shooting programs, his wife said.
Maj. James K. Hamrick, assistant chief of University Police and director of the University of Maryland Public Safety Training Academy, said “Connie,” as Liden was known, was a major contender at the shooting range, capable of competing with bad glasses and able take down clay pigeons without even aiming.
“Just shooting from the hip!” Hamrick said of Liden’s skeet-shooting ability. “That’s how good he was.”
Liden, who often held his tobacco pipe as a mock pistol, trained not only University Police, but also those from departments around the state.
Even more remarkable than his shooting prowess was Liden’s ability to connect with students, said Hamrick, who was mentored by Liden.
“He was a family man, a farmer and a firearms instructor,” Hamrick said.
He cultivated crops on an acre of land at his home in Adelphi until he and his wife moved three years ago to Collington Episcopal Life Care Community in Mitchellville, where he died.
A memorial service was held Nov. 4 at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on College Avenue.
Liden is survived by his wife; his three children, Elizabeth of Columbia, Margaret of Adelphi, and Lawrence H. Liden (class of 1974) of Severn; nine grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
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