At the August 9th City Council meeting, Mayor Becky Ault read a proclamation establishing August 9th David Blackwell Day in Centralia. David Blackwell was a well renowned statistician, mathmetician and author who was born in Centralia on April 24, 1919. David Blackwell attended the University of Illinois where he received a Bachelor Degree in mathematics. Blackwell continued his education earning a Master Degree and a Doctorate by the age of 22.Blackwell held a professional career as a professor of mathematics for the University of Berkeley California , game theory consultant and author of "Theory of Games and Statistical Decisions" and "Basic Statistics" as well as a publisher of many papers on multistage decision-making. For a full bio on David Blackwell, reference the New York Times Obituary "David Blackwell, Scholar of Probability".
2 comments:
Its good to know that we have good people that come from Centralia. We should be proud of this man and his accomplishments.
It is really about time for this. Dr. Blackwell was the first African-American to be elected into the National Academy of Sciences, an honor for a former citizen that many larger cities would be proud to publicize. Before this acknowledgement, it was nearly impossible to find anything about Dr. Blackwell in Centralia, aside from the nice plaque in his honor at the Centralia Historical Museum. I made an inquiry to the math Department at the local high school in 2008, but no one there had heard of Dr. Blackwell. So, better late than never.
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