Willis H. Flygare, 44, of 112 W. Pennsylvania Ave., U, a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois, died at 5:30 a.m. Monday (May 18, 1981) at his home.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete at the Mittendorf Funeral Chapel. Mr. Flygare was born July 24, 1936, at Jackson Minn., a son of Willis A. and Doris Horney Flygare.
He married Ruth Swansson Aug. 17, 1958. She survives. Also surviving are one son, John, at home; three daughters, Karna, Amy and Sarah, all at home; one brother, Tom Flygare of Dover, N.H.; one sister, Mrs. Nancy Horton of Portage, Mich., and his father of Lake City, Minn. He was preceded in death by his mother.
Mr. Flygare received his bachelor's degree from St. Olaf College in 1958 and received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1961. He had taught chemistry at the UI since 1961 and became a full professor in 1966.
He received several fellowships and awards including the Fresenius Award and the American Chemical Society's Baekeland Award. He received the Guggenheim Fellowship, iri 1972, 1978 and 1979 and the Alfred Sloan Fellowship for the years 1964 through 1969. At the 1981spring meeting of the American Physical Society he received the Irving Langmuir Prize in chemical physics and was cited for his outstanding contributions to the understanding of molecular electronic structure and molecular dynamics through the introduction of high-resolution microwave techniques.
He served as chairman of the physical division of the American Chemical Society and as a Centenary Lecturer for the chemical society. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1978, he published a comprehensive text titled "Molecular Structure and Dynamics."
He was a member of St. Matthew's Lutheran Church, Urbana. Memorials may be made to the Willis H. Flygare Fund in care of the chemistry department, Noyes Lab, University of Illinois.