John William Lane

Dr. John William Lane, a radiologist, died Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at Baptist Health, where he had served for two decades as chief of radiology. He was 90. A virtual Renaissance man, Dr. Lane was adept in several languages, a collector of art and himself a painter, a sailor and a certified gemologist. He was proficient in calligraphy and widely knowledgeable in classical music and opera. He was born in 1923 to Arthur Lee and Verlie Lane at Doniphan, Mo. The family moved to Detroit when he was five years old. When he was 14, the family returned south to Imboden, the place Dr. Lane considered home. He graduated from Hendrix Academy in Imboden and attended Arkansas Tech College at Russellville until he enlisted in the Army. He was sent to Stanford University at Palo Alto, Cal., as a trainee in the Army Specialty Training Program. As a civilian he later worked for the Ethyl Corporation, from which he joined the Air Force during the Korean War and was stationed at McClellan Air Force Base at Sacramento, Calif. While still in the military he attended Reed College in Portland, Ore., for training in radiobiology, moving to Oak Ridge, Tenn., where he worked with the Atomic Energy Commission for three months before being sent to a special weapons department of the AEC in Albuquerque, N.M. His son Greg recalled that years later Dr. Lane told him that he and only one other person knew the where abouts of the stockpile of nuclear weapons, somewhere in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico. After five years in the Air Force, Dr. Lane returned to Little Rock to enter medical school at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. During that time he also was engaged in studying the effect of radiation on human beings, about which little was then known. After receiving his medical degree he worked at the Los Alamos AEC Laboratory for a time, coming back to Little Rock to complete his specialty training in radiology. By then he knew a great deal about nuclear medicine. For a year and a half Dr. Lane was an assistant professor at the University of Colorado before once again returning to Little Rock to enter private practice with Radiology Consultants, the radiology group serving what then was Baptist Hospital (now Baptist Health). He remained with the group for 25 years, most of the time as chief of radiology, before retiring in 1988. Dr. Lane was one of the four founders of Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute (now known as CARTI). He was a member for some 15 years of the Grand Maumelle Sailing Club, serving as its commodore for one one-year term. While in Medical School he and a fellow student, Dr. Travis Wells, now deceased, discovered a mutual love of classical music and together formed what came to be called The Music Club, a group of eight to 10 men who shared their musical interests. The Club still exists, meeting once monthly for a formal program of recorded classical music and a gourmet meal. Survivors are Dr. Lane's wife of 65 years, Lou; a daughter, Rebecca Larson (Bruce) of Seattle, and a son, Gregory Charles Lane of Austin, Tex., eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Another son, John W. Lane Jr., is deceased. Visitation at the Lanes' Pleasant Valley home will be today, Saturday, December 21, from 4 to 6 p.m. Graveside services, conducted by Rev. Fred Haustein, a brother-in-law of Mrs. Lane, will be at 11 a.m. Monday, December 23 at the Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery in North Little Rock. Memorials may be made to St. James Shawl Ministry or to a charity of one's choice. Arrangements by Little Rock Funeral Home, 8801 Knoedl Ct., (501)224-2200. Dr. Lane's online guestbook may be signed at www.littlerockfuneralhome.com.