Arthur L. Sherman, Edd

Arthur L. Sherman, 96, of Charlestown, RI died peacefully at home on the evening of August 28. Husband to Jeanne D. (née Rocheleau) Sherman, he was born in Providence on 1 March, 1925 to Emma L. (née DiGrado) and James F. Sherman; he was the youngest brother to his late siblings Francis H. and Edward J. Sherman of Coventry, and Emma L. O’Brien of Indian Orchard, MA. An outstanding interscholastic track athlete at LaSalle Academy in Providence, Arthur was drafted into the US Army in 1943 and became a medical corpsman in the 63rd Infantry Division. In February of 1945, while in combat near Saarbrucken, Germany, he was severely wounded, requiring long rehabilitation. After his discharge from the service, he attended the University of Rhode Island (then RI State College) on the GI Bill, where he studied English Literature and Art. There he resumed his involvement with track and field on the championship teams of that era coached by Fred Tootell and Mal Williams. He competed in the long jump and, primarily, the pole vault, at which he was among the best in the nation, being named to the NCAA All-America Track Team in 1950. He was the first in Rhode Island to clear a height of fourteen feet in the pole vault—and that with an unbending metal pole and a sawdust pit. After college he worked as a cartographer for the Defense Mapping Agency and taught in the Coventry School System and at LaSalle Academy. In 1959 he became an assistant coach of the track and cross-country teams for Tootell, beginning his long career with Athletics and Physical Education at URI. Earning MEd and EdD degrees from Boston University, he became an Associate Professor of Physical Education, retiring from the University in 1989. Arthur’s interest in art began in his youth, and he fondly remembered taking the trolly to Saturday art classes at the RISD Museum. He enjoyed painting in both watercolors and oils, but found his métier as a caricaturist and cartoonist, a medium of expression that he continued throughout his life. His cartoons appeared in URI’s college newspaper, literary magazine and yearbook, and in 1950 and 1952 he won national Freedom Foundation awards for his editorial cartoons. When URI undertook construction of the Memorial Union, dedicated to those who lost their lives in the Second World War, Arthur was asked to paint a series of murals depicting campus life in the late ‘40s for the veterans who flooded into higher education on the GI Bill; most if not all of them first-generation college students who would not otherwise have had that opportunity were it not for the calamity they had experienced. The murals are organized as a seasonal cycle in bucolic Kingston, and chronicle the progression of an academic year that began with students arriving by train at Kingston Station, in the process celebrating life on campus and in South County. As a result of recent scrutiny, they have been recognized as a work of historic significance to be preserved and through which an important period of the University’s life might be better understood. Coaching track became not only a profession for Art, it was a passion and a medium for public service as well. During his time as a coach at URI he produced many accomplished vaulters, but he also devoted his energies for years toward the Special Olympics and Senior Track and Field. After his retirement he continued to volunteer as a coach for many years at Chariho High School (until the age of 86, in fact), where he greatly enjoyed working with student athletes and head coach Bill Haberek. He was particularly pleased at the boys’ track team becoming RI state champions in 2011. For his accomplishments and long dedication to the sport, he was inducted to the Rhode Island Track and Field Coaches’ Hall of Fame. He had been inducted to the URI Athletics Hall of Fame in 1981. Art and Jeanne raised three children and have five grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. In addition to his wife, he is survived by a son Mark of South Kingstown and his wife Pamela Hallene, Karen Sherman of Charlestown (married to the late Kevin Donovan) and Pamela Sherman of Narragansett, married to Bryan Taplin. Their grandchildren are Hannah and Lotte Sherman, Kerry and Kristen Donovan, and Margaret Taplin. He led a full, rich life with many dear, long-time friends and always eager to make new ones. He loved living on Ninigret Pond for many years in a home the family built themselves, as well as the considerable amount of time he spent in the White Mountains, volunteering with Jeanne at Bretton Woods Ski Resort and as a tour guide at the historic Mount Washington Hotel. Funeral services will be private. Friends are encouraged to make contributions in Arthur’s memory to the Sherman Family Scholarship Fund of the Nursing Foundation of Rhode Island, PO Box 41702, Providence, RI 02904.