Joe R. Eagleman

Joe R. Eagleman was born on a farm near West Plains, Missouri. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri in 1963, served as a professor at the University of Kansas for 39 years, and continues as Professor Emeritus. He taught many thousands of students through his courses and through four different textbooks used by more than a hundred universities over a span of several decades. He recently published another textbook on severe and unusual weather. He directed a successful experiment, funded by NASA, on Skylab and invented a tornado in his laboratory that was used by Universal Studios for the 50 ft. tornado attraction in the Twister Building in Orlando, Florida, and can be seen at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. He is also the author of a technical book on severe thunderstorms that includes his tornado safety research, which resulted in changes that have been adopted nationally. He has recorded five albums of original music with a guitar that he made and has published books about making guitars and mandolins. One of his books includes many of his paintings that can also be seen on Fine Art America. He is the author of more than 40 books.

His autobiographies, Name Your Price, Monumental Moments, and My Love Affair With Music tell of his early life on a farm where he was the 11th of 12 children and experiences in a one-room grade school. They include not only his work as a professor and research scientist but also as a musician, artist, taxidermist, luthier, Bible School teacher, father and grandfather. He has extended his writing skills by completing a screenplay, The Tornado Tamer based on his autobiographies.