Cole, Janet

9-27-2021

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Janet Cole, 62, was born on March 15, 1959, to Elton and Patsy (Pat) Henderson in Muskogee, OK, and passed away on September 27, 2021, in Stillwater, OK.  Following high school graduation, she attended the South Dakota State University where she earned  bachelor's degrees in horticulture and in commercial economics.  Subsequently, she received her master's degree in ornamental horticulture at Kansas State University and the doctoral degree in ornamental Horticulture from Texas A&M University.  Janet and William Cole were married on November 2, 1991, in Stillwater.  They especially enjoyed traveling to national parks.  Janet began her career at OSU in August 1988.  In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she advised students, team-coached the horticulture judging team, served as co-advisor of the OSU Landscape Management Club, and was the director of the landscape management program.  She was a leader in online education, working with colleagues from several other universities, the result of which was the creation of the Alliance for Cooperative Course Exchange in Plant Sciences.  In 2009, she was named a Fellow of the American Society for Horticultural Science, which was the most prestigious honor awarded by the organization.  In 2010, Janet was honored as an OSU Regents Professor.  In 2019, she received the Herman Hinrichs Pecan Citation Award presented by the Oklahoma Pecan Growers Association.  She spent the last 4.5 years of her OSU career as head of the Horticulture and Landscape Architecture Department, resulting in her being the first female academic department head in the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.  She cherished the time she was able to spend with students.  Janet was predeceased by her father and is survived by her husband, her mother, and her brother, Greg Henderson, and his wife Karen.