Robert O. Trout

Robert Oren Trout (August 4, 1904 – March 15, 1995) was an American sociologist whose principal academic career was based at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana, where he was the longtime chairman of the Social Sciences Department.

Biography
The oldest of three sons of Otis James Trout (1877-1953) and the former Minnie A. Railey (1873-1961), Trout was born in Girard in Richland Parish but reared in Union Parish north of Ruston. He graduated from Marion High School in the town of Marion. and procured his Bachelor of Arts in history in 1938 from Louisiana Tech and his Master of Arts in education in 1942 from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He received his Ph.D from LSU on August 6, 1954. His dissertation is entitled "The People of the North Louisiana Hill Country," a reference to the 19th century settlers of his native region. In 1962 and 1967, respectively, Trout wrote reviews of Canadian Society by Bernard R. Blishen, Frank E. Jones, Kaspar D. Nagele, and John Porter, and Poverty in the Affluent Society by Hanna H. Meissner, both for the Social Science Quarterly. a publication of the Southwestern Social Science Association.

Trout began his career in Arkansas public schools, for which he taught for nine years. From 1936 to 1939, he taught the seventh grade and served as a principal in Minden in Webster Parish west of Ruston. He then served from 1942 to 1946 in the United States Navy during World War II, stationed in the Central Pacific in Hawaii and the Caroline Islands. Thereafter, Trout returned to Minden as a school principal but in 1947 joined the Louisiana Tech faculty with responsibilities in geography and sociology. He retired effective September 22, 1976. Trout held membership in Alpha Kappa Delta, the honor society for sociology, and Phi Delta Kappa, an organization of educators. He was also affiliated with the Southwestern Sociological Association, the Southwest Social Sciences Association, and the Lions International.

He is included in a past edition of Who's Who in the American Southwest and Who's Who in America. To accommodate the beginning of desegregation, Trout served on the Lincoln Parish Bi-Racial Committee. He also was a board member of the Ruston Housing Authority. In 1961, Trout was named the Louisiana delegate to the White House Conference on Aging. He frequently lectured at civic clubs and within the education system, often peppering his talks with sociological statistics that he had gathered and researched.

On April 10, 1952, Trout married the former Rita Virginia Galloway (1916–2013), a native of Arcadia in Bienville Parish, who was divorced from Rawson Fisher Stovall, Jr. (1913-1946), of Dodson in Winn Parish. Stovall had died of a heart attack while enlisting in the United States Army at the induction center in San Antonio, Texas. The secretary to the president of Louisiana Tech from 1940 until her retirement in 1970, Mrs. Trout had two daughters from her first marriage. In a ceremony at the First Baptist Church of Ruston, Mary Virginia Stovall in 1960 wed John Michael Cage (born May 1936), later a urologist in Monroe, Louisiana. The second Stovall daughter was Barbara Sue Bowman; both Mary and Barbara predeceased their mother. Robert and Virginia Trout are interred at Greenwood Cemetery in Ruston.

Trout is honored by the website Chalkboard Champions.