Dedication: Edmund O. Belsheim.

• Author: Huffman, James L.
• Position: Includes 2 testimonials

During his remarkable career as a law professor, Edmund O. Belsheim taught nearly every basic course in the curriculum. He was a common law lawyer in the Holmes tradition and more. Though educated when the common law dominated the curriculum, Ed practiced and taught through the New Deal, the civil rights movement, the Great Society, the Reagan years, and nearly to the end of the 20th Century. Along the way he brought the growing wisdom of age to his teaching about law and a legal system that little resembled what he had studied as a youth. He also brought the timeless virtues of compassion, friendship, and an expectation of excellence.

Environmental law is one of the few legal subjects of which Ed Belsheim knew little. Environmental law, like this law review, was born about the time Ed Belsheim retired from the University of Nebraska Over the next quarter century, both environmental law and Ed Belsheim would play central roles in lifting this law school from threatened survival to national prominence and leadership.

That Ed knew little of the subject matter of environmental law did not limit his understanding of its importance. While some "old timers" grumbled that environmental law was fringe area stuff and a passing fad, Ed Belsheim never questioned this law school's commitment of resources and reputation to a subject area that most law schools would discover a decade or two later. He would not have claimed any credit for the success of Environmental Law or of our law school's program in natural resources and environmental law, but then he was not one to claim credit for much of anything. Teaching, not taking credit, was Ed's mission as a law professor.

While the University of Nebraska records will show that Ed Belsheim retired in 1972, the records of this law school, and more importantly the lives of thousands of our graduates, testify to the fact that Ed never retired from his life as a teacher. He taught through the spring semester of 1994. He was 89 years old. He died a few months later. Ed wouldn't have had it any other way.

I take great pleasure in dedicating the 25th anniversary volume of Environmental Law to the memory of Professor Edmund O. Belsheim. Though he never published within the covers of the first 24 volumes, his commitment to excellence has been an inspiration to the generation of students who have made this journal a leader in what has become a crowded field. If he were still with us, Ed would no doubt remind the...