Purdue President Emeritus Beering dies at 87

Purdue President Emeritus Dr. Steven C. Beering has passed away.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WTHR) - Purdue President Emeritus Dr. Steven C. Beering has passed away.

Beering, who led the university from 1983-2000, was 87 years old.

Before taking over at Purdue, Beering was the dean of the Indiana University School of Medicine and director of the Indiana University Medical Center. He served for 12 years in the U.S. Air Force, where he was an adviser to the U.S. surgeon general and medical consultant to NASA. In that capacity, he was a physician to the United States' first astronauts, as well as President Dwight Eisenhower.

“His 18-year leadership of our institution was but one chapter in an epic life of serial achievement. He and Jane will rest together on our campus’s Slayter Hill, and forever in our memories and in the annals of the greatest Boilermakers," Purdue President Mitch Daniels said in a release.

Jane Beering died in March 2015 at the age of 81.

Beering, the son of a German furniture retailer and a French nurse, had his schooling interrupted by World War II. His mother and younger brother were sent to work at a farm labor camp near Nuremburg when he was just 11 years old.

After his father tracked his wife and sons down after the war, the family emigrated to the United States, reaching New York in July 1948 before settling in Pittsburgh.

He is survived by three sons and five grandchildren.