Hubert Hall

Memorial services for Hubert H. “Hub” Hall, 82, Lecompton, KS will be held at 1 p.m. Friday, October 1, 2010 at the Warren-McElwain Mortuary in Lawrence.  Private inurnment will be at a later date in the Gardner Cemetery in Gardner, KS. .

He died on Saturday, September 25, 2010 at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

Mr. Hall was born on July 29, 1928 in Berkeley, CA, the son of Dr. E. Raymond & Mary Harkey Hall.  His family moved to Lawrence in June 1944. He graduated from Liberty Memorial High School in 1945.  He then attended Kansas University and graduated in 1949 with a degree in geology.  He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin in1952.

He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.

Following graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, Mr. Hall joined Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (now ExxonMobil) in 1952 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  During his 34 years as a petroleum geologist with Exxon, he explored for oil and gas in many parts of the world.  For the last twenty years with Exxon, he led their exploration in Malaysia, SE USA, the Middle East, North Africa, Ireland, and England.  These assignments resulted in major oil and gas discoveries offshore Malaysia and in the UK North Sea.  He retired in London in October, 1986.  He then returned to Lawrence, moving to rural Lecompton in 1989.
 
Following his retirement, Mr. Hall was active in local community and university organizations.  He served as Chairman of the KU Geology Advisory Board from 1990 to 1995, and as Chairman of the KU Natural History Museum Board from 1997 until 1999.  He was a member of the KU Chancellors Club and the Outlook Society.  He was a member of the Lecompton United Methodist Church.  He was a life member of the Lecompton Historical Society and the Douglas County Historical Society, and was active in preserving and restoring tall grass prairie and other endangered wildlife habitats.  He and his wife established the Hall Nature Preserve in rural Lecompton through a gift of 116 acres to the KU Endowment Association. 

He married Kathleen McBride on September 3, 1949 in Wichita, KS.  She survives of the home.  Other survivors include two brothers: William J. Hall of Urbana, IL, Benjamin D. Hall, of Bellevue, WA and several nieces, nephews and great nieces and nephews.

The family suggests memorials in his name to the Lecompton Historical Society or to the Lawrence Humane Society and may be sent in care of the mortuary.