Sidney J. Lyford, 71, taught animal science at UMass

SIDNEY J. LYFORD

Academic halls were only a few steps removed from the farming childhood Sidney J. Lyford Jr. left behind when he became a professor, and he strode into his past whenever possible to build a better future for the agricultural industry.

While teaching animal science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he encouraged students who wanted to tend herds of their own. And when he visited farmers to offer advice, he brought the perspective of someone who had done years of chores on a dairy farm.

"I think his background played very well not only in working with the students, but with the producers, and it gave him credibility," said Bob Duby, a professor emeritus and longtime colleague. "When Sid walked down to the farm, he wasn't afraid to get his boots dirty."

Dr. Lyford, a professor emeritus who taught at the university for 38 years and was honored for his dedication to teaching and to his students, died of heart failure Sunday while camping with his wife in Falmouth. He was 71 and had lived in Sunderland.

"His students loved him," Lisa Lyford of Williamsburg, Ky., said of her father, whom she visited often while a student at UMass-Amherst. "Outside his office in Stockbridge Hall, there's this long bench and there would always be this long line of students waiting to get in."

The crowds were particularly large when the next semester's courses were chosen, and Dr. Lyford made himself available to counsel anyone, regardless of whether or not he was the student's official adviser.

"They were looking for assistance, and they knew Sid's office was going to be open," Duby said. "There's no question that Sid dedicated his career to the students. He was one of the most respected classroom teachers in the department, and he had been throughout his career."

In the 1990s, Dr. Lyford received awards at the university for excellence in teaching and in student advising. He also was honored by the regional organizations of the American Society of Animal Science and the American Dairy Science Association. But he kept looking to the future, even as he prepared to close the door on his academic career.

"Where will the future dairy farmers of Massachusetts come from? If you are a dairy farmer with children interested in continuing the family business, you are indeed fortunate," he wrote for a UMass publication in spring 2001, the year he retired. "What can be done to interest nonfarm young people in the business of dairy farming and its related industries?"

Dr. Lyford got students interested through the example of his life and learning.

He grew up in Brentwood, N.H., where "all we had was a radio because television wasn't even out," said his older brother, Lawrence, who still lives there in the Lyford family's farmhouse. Dr. Lyford, he added, was diligent when it came to pulling his weight.

"I never once heard my father scold and say, 'Come on now, we've got to do the chores,' " he said. "When he said it's time to do the chores, no one ever quibbled. Sidney Junior never let up. He worked all the time."

That was also true when Dr. Lyford went to the University of New Hampshire, where he studied dairy husbandry and graduated in 1958. To pay for college, his brother said, Dr. Lyford worked in the dairy barns on campus and lived upstairs in dorm space above where the cows were kept.

"How he could ever do his studies and get done with the chores, I don't know," he said. "It was a wicked grind, but he was very smart and so he got through pretty good."

After graduating from UNH, Dr. Lyford attended North Carolina State University, graduating with a master's in nutrition and statistics in 1960 and a doctorate in animal nutrition and chemistry in 1964. By then, he had already begun teaching at UMass.

In 1961, he married Sheila English, whom he met on a blind date while in graduate school. Although Dr. Lyford's academic specialty was animal science, his curiosity ranged from meteorology to geology to his 40 blueberry bushes and a garden so bountiful that he sold produce in front of his house.

"He was probably as good a gardener as Massachusetts had, right in his backyard - top-notch, and I can tell you this," his brother said.

"He had a huge vegetable garden and he loved sweet corn. He'd say, 'Oh my goodness, you've got to eat it every day,' " his daughter said. In the front yard, he sold his surplus at prices that recalled the frugality of his youth: "a bag of vegetables for a dollar, pick and choose," she added.

Gregarious and good-natured, Dr. Lyford was hard-pressed to find fault with anyone he met, his family said, and he went out of his way to meet many people.

"He would walk up to total strangers and start joking with them, and pretty soon they'd be laughing," his daughter said.

"At his retirement party, someone said the most severe thing they ever heard him say about anybody was, 'Well, he was a bit rough around the edges,' " his wife said.

Said Duby: "There was no pretentiousness whatsoever, he was as down to earth as you could get. And if Sid told you something, you could count on it. He was just good to be around."

In addition to his wife, daughter, and brother, Dr. Lyford leaves two sons, John of Pittsfield and Glenn of Blackstone; two other brothers, David of Greene, N.Y., and Winston of Cranston, R.I.; a sister, Muriel Donohue of Scituate; two granddaughters; and one grandson.

A memorial service will be announced.