HASTINGS DOCTOR HAS DEVOTED LIFE TO HELPING OTHERS
The Grand Rapids Press – MLive.com
June 9 2008
MI
HASTINGS — V. Harry Adrounie’s home is a showcase of global artifacts,
pieces of history collected from a colorful life spent fighting a
typhoid outbreak, starting universities and meeting dignitaries.
The 93-year-old veteran public health advocate calls himself
ordinary. Locally, he’s known as vice chairman of the Planning
Commission, of which he has been a member for more than 20 years. He
also is the namesake of the Adrounie House Bed and Breakfast, at 126
S. Broadway St., the historic house where he grew up.
But, during his military and public health career, he started schools
in Indonesia, was a professor at the American universities of Beirut
and Armenia, the University of Hawaii, and an adjunct professor at
Ferris State University.
He was nicknamed "The Water Doctor," during American occupation of
Japan following World War II because of his knowledge about boiling
water to kill bacteria.
"We had bombed the hell out of Japan, and everything was disrupted,"
he said.
A photo on his living room wall offers proof that a young George
W. Bush met with the Women’s Auxiliary in that very room, invited by
Adrounie’s wife, Agnes, former head of the Barry County Republican
Party.
And his name graces legislation: The "V. Harry Adrounie Laboratory Data
Quality Assurance Act" of 2004 was the result of his 15-year push for
the public health law that requires the Department of Environmental
Quality to accept contracts with laboratories that have met certain
accreditation standards.
"It was a surprise when they named it after me," he said.
Public service is just a way of life for Adrounie. He’s not even sure
when his Planning Commission term expires.
"I was going to quit, but they didn’t want me to. They keep putting
me on and they don’t tell me," he said.