In Memoriam: Allan T. Scholz

Eastern Washington University is saddened to report that Allan T. Scholz, PhD, professor emeritus, Department of Biology, passed away unexpectedly on Feb. 15, 2026.

Scholz came to work at EWU in 1980 and spent his career teaching and conducting research on fishes on campus. Never deterred by a challenge, restoration of the depleted fisheries in the Upper Columbia Basin became a mission throughout his tenure at EWU. Soon after arriving to the Cheney campus, he secured funding from the Bonneville Power Administration and personally phoned every Native American student enrolled at EWU at the time to invite them to work in his lab on restoration projects.

In 1982, Scholz was instrumental in helping the five tribes of the Upper Columbia, Coeur d’ Alene, Colville, Kalispel, Kootenai, and Spokane, form the Upper Columbia United Tribes (UCUT) which is a consortium to promote a proactive, collaborative, and science-based approach to protecting and promoting fish and water resources. Thirty-five years later, nearly 150 undergraduate and graduate students, including members of the UCUT tribes, had gotten a start to their careers by doing fisheries research and management in his lab.

Scholz’s contributions to restoring upper Columbia River fisheries earned him the 2015 Watershed Hero award from The Sierra Club. He maintained this exceptional record of research productivity while teaching a full schedule at EWU.  This included course work in freshman level cell biology, ecology and evolutionary theory, basic human and plant biology, advanced coursework in fish and marine biology, embryology, and the history of biology. The day after his 2015 “retirement,” he was back in his office working on his books about eastern Washington’s fish biology, as well as other projects that occupied him for the next decade.

Al was best known for his research on olfactory imprinting and homing in salmon, and his publication of six books on eastern Washington fishes (all available for free viewing on the EWU JFK Library, and 147 technical reports. He received 145 research grants and contracts to support his unwavering dedication to his work. For those who knew and worked with Al, he is fondly remembered as a generous and caring person who deeply loved his community and Eastern Washington University.  He will be deeply missed by his family, his many students, his UCUT colleagues, his fellow faculty members, and friends.

A celebration of Scholz’s life will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 9, with a reception following at the Hargreaves Library Room. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the EWU Foundation Biology Memorial Scholarship fund In Memory of Dr. Allan Scholz via mail to: 102 Hargreaves Hall, Cheney, Washington 99004.

**This In Memoriam tribute was a collaboration that included content from Scholz himself, contributions from several faculty members and other members of the campus community.

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Jennifer Walters